


I'll wait for you

by dunklenacht310



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angry Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Attempted Suicide, Bottom Harry, But it never actually happens, Conservatory, Deepthroating, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Gay Sex, Hair-pulling, Heavy Angst, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Minor Character Death, Music College AU, Pain Kink, Painplay, Rough Sex, Self-Medication, Top Zayn, Violent Sex, anger issues, but it's mostly accidental, but just in one part of the story, face-slapping (if you squint), fake boyfriends, mentions of OD, there is an attempt at sexual choking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-10-24 05:24:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 37,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20700659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dunklenacht310/pseuds/dunklenacht310
Summary: So Harry Styles needs to stay, because Zayn needs the validation. He needs to know there’s someone who will let him take his anger out on him, someone who will also take his anger out on Zayn.In a never-ending circle of pushing and pulling, in an ugly, twisted way, they need each other.-Zayn and Harry hate each other. That, of course, doesn't mean they can't hate-f**k each other.Music college AU where Harry and Zayn don't understand why they keep floating towards each other, because their issues are in the way. Until they become too big to be ignored, and everything spirals down.





	1. I hate you

**Author's Note:**

> **WARNING:** Please, please read the tags and the following disclaimers carefully. 
> 
> This story deals with: **Drug abuse, alcohol abuse, addiction and alcoholism, anger issues**. 
> 
> As for what concerns the sex, it will mostly be "normal" angry/rough sex, but there will a couple scenes where it will be quite violent. It will always be consensual, there is absolutely no dealing with rape and the like in this fic, but it will be intense.
> 
> If any of these themes bother you, or if you think they might hurt your sensitivity, please DO NOT read this story.
> 
> Then, a little bit of advice. This fic will mention some classical music pieces, and I provide links to them in the text because they're important, to me and to the fic. If you want and have time, I suggest you listen to them when they show up in the story, in particular the ones that will also appear as chapter titles. It'll make the scenes have more meaning and sense, and you'll know how I imagined them in my mind when I wrote them. Especially the two mentioned piano-violin duets.
> 
> Lastly: I couldn't find enough and reliable info as to how British conservatories really work, exam-wise, so I just decided that the music college in this fic was going to work like the European one I attended for half my life. I hope you don't mind, also because I will explain the exam logistics throughout the fic when they're relevant.

Zayn is fishing a cigarette from the inside pocket of his jacket as he makes his way out of the third piano room in the corridor, when he hears the frustrated growl followed by an angry hitting of random piano keys.

His first reaction is to scowl at the way the piano in the first room is being abused.

Then, he vaguely thinks he should let this go and just keep walking, get out of the conservatory, because it’s almost eight and the music college is about to close and he’s starving.

But he knows who is in the room, he knows what the person’s doing, and there’s just no way he’ll pass the opportunity. So he traces his steps back through the corridor, walking past the closed doors of rooms three and two, and then stops in front of room one, trying to peek inside from the small crack in the not completely closed door.

He grins, because the mere sight of Harry Styles sitting at a piano is, quite frankly, ridiculous.

Harry Styles is a _violin _major. He shouldn’t even be _allowed _next to pianos. That is _Zayn’s _spot, in his favourite room, at his favourite piano in the whole music college building. The thought that _his _favourite room had been booked by none other than Harry Styles makes his blood boil, and he would like to just barge in and pull his hair in retaliation like they’re five on a playground, but he can think of a better retaliation than that.

He pushes the door open enough to enter, not making any sound, and he’s greeted by the sight of Harry Styles’s back, stretching a ridiculous shirt with clouds printed all over a blue background. His hair seems to have been tied in that stupid bun for a long time, because the bun is askew and a series of curls is escaping it. His arse looks nice while he sits on the stool.

_My fucking stool_, Zayn thinks with an internal snarl.

The thing is that he hates Harry Styles, with a passion, and he knows the feeling’s mutual.

They’ve done nothing but spite each other, tantalize each other with snarky comments and judge each other’s musical abilities since they met a year earlier. The game has gotten old for all their peers, who automatically roll their eyes whenever they catch sight of Harry and Zayn passing each other in the hallways of the conservatory or in one of the small paths through the fairly big yards around it. People roll their eyes at Zayn and Harry’s feud even when they’re not doing anything, sometimes.

The game has gotten old, but not for Zayn and Harry.

For Zayn, Harry is still a stupid violin major who doesn’t know how to use his talent and wastes it on a daily basis.

For Harry, Zayn is still a presumptuous piano major who thinks that he’s better than any musician just because the piano is the most _complete _instrument. Which is true, and Zayn doesn’t even know how _that _can be an argument, but with Harry Styles, anything can be an argument. Even fucking Mozart, on whom there’s literally _nothing _to argue.

But now, Harry Styles is fussing over a piano with what look like Chopin music scores to Zayn, and Zayn has to force back a fucking giggle, because violinists have to take two mandatory piano exams at the conservatory, and while Harry Styles did his first before even meeting Zayn, his second is gonna be soon and he’s _struggling_ with it.

Almighty Harry fucking Styles, _struggling with piano_. Zayn tries not to gloat, because he wants to reserve that for when Harry will see him.

Zayn takes a couple steps towards Harry, and Harry, oblivious to the company, sighs and brushes his face with his hands. “I can do this I can do this, ” he mutters. “It’s just fucking Chopin on a fucking piano, how hard can it be?”

Zayn arches an eyebrow. _How hard can it be_. He has to physically restrain himself from scoffing.

Harry cracks his back and shoulders, the shirt stretching around his muscles, and then tries to loosen up his hands by waving them in the air before starting the piece.

It’s Chopin indeed, _Waltz op. 64 no. 2_, one of Zayn’s personal favourites.

Which Harry Styles seems to be doing fine with, until he gets to the _più mosso_, and starts fucking murdering the piece.

Okay, well, maybe not exactly murdering it. He’s still Harry Styles, and if he wasn’t _good_, Zayn wouldn’t feel the need to fight him every chance he gets. The main reason Zayn hates Harry Styles is exactly that, how good Harry Styles is.

But this is piano, it’s Zayn’s territory, and Zayn isn’t close enough to watch Harry’s hands on the keyboard, but he knows Harry’s completely ignoring the fingering surely reported on the scores. Zayn can _hear _it.

So he decides to put the poor instrument out of its misery at the butchering hands of Harry Styles, and he joins him at the grand piano, leaning on the now closed lid with his elbows, right by Harry’s side so that he can grin down at him.

Harry’s eyes flick to him for a moment, then roll, but he doesn’t stop playing. That is, until the distraction fucks up his fingering too much, and he is forced to stop. “Fuck,” he says. “What the fuck do you want, Malik?”

Zayn sighs. “To make sure this poor baby will survive the night,” he says, pensively stroking the grand piano’s lid.

Harry rolls his eyes. “Get out. Room’s booked. By me. I have better shit to do than listen to you talk. As is always the case.”

Zayn shrugs. “Need _help _with good ol’ Chopin?”

Harry raises his eyes to Zayn’s, probably mortally offended or something. “Me? Help _from you_?” he asks incredulously, and then scoffs, not saying anything else and busying himself with taking up the scores from the music stand to take a closer look.

Zayn can’t help it. He leans forward, to point at the fingering. “See these little tiny numbers? They’re here for a reason, especially for a piece this fast,” he says with a grin. “Your problem is the fingering, Styles.”

Harry’s mouth quirks on one side. “First time I’ve been told this.”

Zayn feels a little bit of heat in his stomach, and ignores it in favour of keeping his grin pointed at Harry’s tired eyes and quirked mouth. “Maybe no one really knows what _good _fingering is like, if they think yours is so fucking amazing,” he replies conversationally, studying his own fingers. “’M a pianist, after all. You know what they say about us.”

“That you’re a bunch of presumptuous shitheads who do nothing but sit on their arses and think the world should bow to them just ‘cause your instrument is _the best_?” Harry retorts, his eyes getting angrier when he raises them to stare up at Zayn again.

Zayn feels his rage flare like it’s a pool of fuel, and Harry just lit a match, inching it closer and closer because he wants to see how close he can get before it starts burning. _Just sit on our arses? Just fucking _sit_ on our arses?_

“Watch it, Styles,” Zayn whispers, not straightening his back and keeping his face at eye-level with Harry.

There’s a knock on the open door, which cuts off Harry’s reply. They both turn, seeing one of the keepers of the conservatory in the doorway. He’s an elderly man with a cloud of white hair, and even he, when he sees it’s Harry and Zayn, rolls his eyes. “We close in twenty min, lads,” he says. “’M not gonna come warn you again. If you’re not out in twenty, you get out tomorrow morning.”

Harry smiles kindly at the man. “Thanks, Mr. Fray, we’ll be out in a second,” he says politely.

Mr. Fray nods, smiling at Harry in return, and leaves, closing the door after himself.

Zayn doesn’t budge, and he grabs Harry’s bun, pulling it a little so that Harry will look at him again. “How is it,” he asks in a hum, “that you’re such a fucking pain in the arse, rude and annoying, and yet you always fool anyone else into thinking you’re some kind of fucking cherub?”

Harry blinks. “Get your hands off my hair,” he replies. “And it’s ‘cause I don’t care about being polite with you. You don’t deserve it, Malik.”

Zayn scoffs, and doesn’t let go of Harry’s hair. Instead, he pulls at the bun again, harder, and revels in hearing the small hiss coming from Harry’s lips. “Should be kinder,” he tells Harry, “I came all the way here to help you with Chopin even though I hate being in your presence.”

Harry’s eyes narrow. “Let go of my fucking hair,” he repeats.

Zayn smiles, and doesn’t.

Harry stares at him for a moment, and then emits something that sounds like a growl. “If you want to fucking pull at my hair, then do it for a fucking reason at least,” he says at last, like it’s costing him a lot to say the words.

And it’s always like this, isn’t it, Zayn thinks. Because he’s been rock-hard since he started bickering with Harry, as often happens.

So he doesn’t need to be told twice, and he pulls at Harry’s hair with conviction, dragging him off the stool and then tossing him around a little until Harry’s landing on his knees in front of Zayn.

Harry looks up, his jaw set as he fumbles with Zayn’s jeans button and zipper. “I hate you, Malik,” he almost spits, and the next moment his mouth is around Zayn’s cock, taking him all the way in, in one swift motion. Zayn gives out a choked grunt when he sees Harry has pooled spit in his mouth and he’s spreading it over Zayn’s cock with his tongue, to make the glide of his lips smoother.

He tightens his grip onto Harry’s hair, and forces his dick harder down Harry’s throat, making him gag. “So fucking filthy,” he murmurs. “I hate you too, Styles.”

+

The first time Zayn and Harry hate-fucked after having had a row was a year earlier, the night of the gala dinner for the conservatory anniversary, in which Harry and Zayn had been selected to play a piece together, because they were the best pianist and violinist in their music college.

They didn’t know each other at the time, so when Zayn had been given Harry’s name, they’d agreed on meeting in the first room in the violin wing to meet in person and start practicing.

Merely half an hour later, they were arguing about the tempo and the beat, Harry was shouting that he hated how pianists always thought they were right, and Zayn was yelling that violinists always think they can be the best at everything they attempt.

They kept practicing, because it wasn’t like they could go to the Director and refuse being selected to open a fucking gala concert. But they also kept being at each other’s throat since then.

It’s been a year. Everybody knows they hate each other.

Nobody knows they fuck each other through it.

Louis, Zayn’s best mate and fellow pianist, doesn't know either, because it's Zayn’s shameful little secret. He once asked Zayn why he even hates Harry Styles so much, and Zayn hadn’t given him an answer, but it’s not because he doesn’t have one.

He has plenty, starting from the first and most important, the one he can’t bring himself to say out loud. That Harry Styles is so fucking _good _at music, so good that he doesn’t even have to struggle that much, and yet he’s _failing _at it. Because he doesn’t even try, he doesn’t practice as much as he should, he sometimes fails exams just by not showing up, and it gets on Zayn’s nerve, that Harry Styles has been blessed with _natural talent _and doesn’t do all he can with it.

It’s like he doesn’t want it, not really.

Zayn has worked his fucking arse off to even be admitted into the conservatory, and if now he’s the best pianist in the department, it’s because he always tried _more _than he should have.

It’s unnerving to know that Harry Styles could outclass Zayn any moment, if he gave a fuck about it, and they’re not even playing the same instrument.

So they fight, they scream at each other, and they fuck each other because they need the outlet and they need to establish dominance over the other in a way they can’t do by playing their instruments.

It’s not some shitty rom-com where the two main characters pretend to hate each other while harbouring a secret crush on each other. No, Zayn really hates Harry Styles, and the feeling’s mutual.

And Zayn is not ashamed to admit that that’s exactly why the sex is so good. Because they hate each other so much that they don’t care about hurting each other. They _want _it to hurt. They _ask _the other to make it hurt, not explicitly, but unmistakably anyway.

They don’t fuck regularly, of course, but in that year it’s gotten to a point that Zayn can’t keep count of the times they ended up crammed in a broom closet in the conservatory anymore. One minute they’re spitting venom on each other, and the next they’re locking themselves in a room, pushing at their chests and pulling their hair until one of the two is holding the other down and fucking him harshly, to make it hurt, to show him that they’re winning.

None of them actually feels like he won, after they come.

But Zayn will take it, because the feeling of shoving Harry against the wall and whispering to him that he hates him while Harry says the same thing back to him is exhilarating.

So that’s what brings Zayn to quickly modify the fingering printed on Harry’s Chopin scores with the fingering he personally elaborated, to make it easier to play that waltz.

Because Harry Styles is stupid and he’s failing his exams, and if he fails _too much_, he’s gonna have to repeat the year, no matter how fucking _good _and _almighty _he is. And it would mean Zayn won’t be able to push and pull at him anymore, because it’s their last year, and he won’t be there anymore to do that.

Zayn’s only real match in that music college, and probably in the world, is Harry Styles.

So Harry Styles needs to stay, because Zayn needs the validation. He needs to know there’s someone who will let him take his anger out on him, someone who will also take his anger out on Zayn.

In a never-ending circle of pushing and pulling, in an ugly, twisted way, they need each other.

Harry is still panting from how hard he came, and he’s still wiping Zayn’s come off his own face with a towel he had in his bag, but when he sees Zayn writing on his scores, he still protests and tries to shove Zayn away.

Zayn doesn’t let him, even if he’s still panting from how hard he came as well. He kicks at Harry, hard, getting him in the shin and grinning at the way Harry yelps in pain, and he keeps modifying the fingering numbers on the scores.

Harry must realize what he’s doing, at some point, because he shuts up and miraculously doesn’t interrupt Zayn anymore.

When Zayn is done, he closes the scores and thrusts them on Harry’s chest, the sheets making a loud _slap _sound in the silence of the room.

Harry looks at them, eyebrows arched, and then chuckles. “My deepthroating must have been mind-blowing, for you to repay me with your enormous, gigantic kindness,” he comments.

Zayn stands in front of him for a moment, and then leans forward, catching Harry’s lower lip between his teeth and dragging it so hard he draws blood. It’s not a kiss, though. They never kiss. “This is not kindness, Styles, don’t be mistaken,” he replies. “You’re fucking failing your exams because you’re a dick to your own talent, and I won’t have it. Who will let me fuck them like a little slut when you’ll be kicked out from here?”

Something flashes in Harry’s eyes, but it’s not anger, Zayn thinks. It looks more like sadness, which _really?_ Harry knows exactly what he’s doing with his musical career, there’s no way he _doesn’t _know. “You’re not the only one doing the fucking, last time I checked,” Harry says, but it’s a weak comeback, and Zayn gloats at the slightly demised tone.

Zayn shrugs. “Study the fucking piece, Styles,” he says, jabbing a finger on Harry’s chest, hard enough to hurt.

“How do you even know I’m failing my exams? You’re not even in my department!” Harry retorts, petulantly.

“Piano and violin always have exams on the same days, in adjacent rooms,” Zayn says with an eye roll. “And last session you didn’t even bother to show up. I didn’t even have to check, because if you’d been there, everybody going out of the room would have been talking about _how fucking perfect and amazing and talented Harry Styles is_,” he adds with a high-pitched tone and batting his eyelashes.

Harry chuckles bitterly. “At least you know I’m good.”

“Yeah, I know, and you know I’m fucking good too,” Zayn answers. “So step your fucking game up. You never had to sweat it, did you? Well, now it’s time you start if you don’t wanna fall from your fucking pedestal and split your head open. Maybe the piano can teach you that more than your stupid violin.”

Harry opens his mouth, but in the end he doesn’t reply. He just shoves his scores into his bag, harshly and with his still swollen mouth pressed in a thin line, then shoulders the case with his violin and walks towards the door.

When he’s on the threshold, and only then, he turns to look at Zayn again, his eyes burning. “I hate you, Malik,” he grunts.

Zayn smirks. “I hate you too, Styles.”


	2. Brahms - Hungarian Dance no. 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry stops playing and stays motionless with his eyes on the black and white ivory for a moment, and in the general silence Zayn hears him release a breath. Like he was nervous. _Harry Styles, Wonder Boy, nervous_. Sure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **WARNING:** Please, please read the tags and the following disclaimers carefully. 
> 
> This story deals with: **Drug abuse, alcohol abuse, addiction and alcoholism, anger issues**. 
> 
> As for what concerns the sex, it will mostly be "normal" angry/rough sex, but there will a couple scenes where it will be quite violent. It will always be consensual, there is absolutely no dealing with rape and the like in this fic, but it will be intense.
> 
> If any of these themes bother you, or if you think they might hurt your sensitivity, please DO NOT read this story.
> 
> Then, a little bit of advice. This fic will mention some classical music pieces, and I provide links to them in the text because they're important, to me and to the fic. If you want and have time, I suggest you listen to them when they show up in the story, in particular the ones that will also appear as chapter titles. It'll make the scenes have more meaning and sense, and you'll know how I imagined them in my mind when I wrote them. Especially the two mentioned piano-violin duets.
> 
> Lastly: I couldn't find enough and reliable info as to how British conservatories really work, exam-wise, so I just decided that the music college in this fic was going to work like the European one I attended for half my life. I hope you don't mind, also because I will explain the exam logistics throughout the fic when they're relevant.

It’s really a coincidence, that Zayn’s there when Harry Styles does his piano exam.

Louis has an exam as well, that day, and he’s been pretty worried about this one, so Zayn had offered to go be there in the audience, and Louis had accepted. Exams are never private, in music colleges. Everybody can just come in and watch.

Louis enrolled a year after Zayn, so Zayn has already done this particular exam, and he remembers having nightmares about Professor Trackel coming out from under his bed to tell him the posture of his wrists was shit. He was never gonna leave Louis alone with this.

Zayn didn’t think the teacher would combine Piano Level 2 with Mandatory Piano For Other Purposes, though.

But that he did, and when Zayn sits, there’s no trace of Harry Styles. Zayn feels anger boil in the pit of his stomach just thinking about Harry not fucking showing up for an exam again, when Zayn even gave him his personal fingering for the waltz, when Zayn explicitly made him face the reality of him being about to fail their fucking last year.

He hates that Harry Styles thinks he’s just too fucking good to be pinned down by academic requirements and tests. His hands are shaking.

The whispers start right about then, and when Zayn raises his eyes to look at the cause of the polite commotion, he sees Harry Styles, walking in the room with his violin strapped to his back, sauntering forward like his dick is guiding him. He has half a smirk on his face when he realizes that him just showing up in the piano department has people murmur and giggle.

Zayn is fuming. They don’t need to feed Styles’s ego and make it even bigger than it already is.

Harry smiles angelically at the teacher and murmurs an apology about being late, and of course, _of course _Professor Trackel, the bane of any pianist’s existence, just smiles back and tells Harry Styles “No worries, no worries”.

Harry doesn’t seem to have to even look for Zayn, like he just knows Zayn’s there. He looks at Louis, who he probably knows is Zayn’s best mate, and the next moment he raises his head towards the rows occupied by the audience, and immediately finds Zayn with his eyes.

They look at each other.

Zayn sees people roll their eyes with his peripheral vision.

Then Harry smirks and takes a seat on the opposite side of the room, where the soon-to-be examined people are sitting.

Louis is the last of the list, so Zayn braces himself to be bored to death, and discreetly takes out his history of music book, to get something done while he waits.

He stops hearing the pieces, the people running crying out of the room, and Professor Trackel’s screams, the more he delves into the chapter on dodecaphony, until he hears Trackel call out “Harry Styles, Mandatory Piano For Other Purposes, step forward please”.

Zayn doesn’t even care that he snaps his head up and closes his book instantly. He’s here, might as well watch it.

Harry smiles and stands up, going to the piano with literally nothing. No scores, no notes, just his fucking flamingo shirt.

“No scores?” Trackel asks.

Harry smiles. “It’s one piece, I had time to learn it, Professor.”

Trackel smiles. “Good lad,” he says.

People are already flipping.

Zayn would like to step down the rows of seats and smash Harry Styles’s nose against the keyboard.

Harry clears his throat and wiggles his fingers a little to loosen them. Zayn cranes his neck.

And then Harry starts playing Chopin’s _[Waltz op. 64 no. 2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOcryGEw1NY)_, with Zayn’s fingering, and he fucking _nails _it.

Zayn sees people gape, and he isn’t gaping, but if he didn’t _know _the person playing, he probably would be, he admits in the deepest, darkest recesses of his mind.

He knows that waltz is easy for anyone majoring in piano, but the mere fact that a _violin_ major, with very little training in piano by definition, is playing it so _amazingly_, is wild. Zayn is mesmerized by the easiness with which Harry Styles’s fingers fly on the keyboard, and it has to do with him playing violin, the swiftness of fingers, because Zayn can’t, won’t believe the technique came to Harry in a fucking dream or something just because he’s the wonder boy.

He takes deep breaths to calm down, and then eyes Louis, who has gone a little green, but still grins at Zayn and mimics taking deep, calming breaths for Zayn, mouthing “Chill out” at him.

The waltz isn’t particularly long, so it ends quite soon. Harry stops playing and stays motionless with his eyes on the black and white ivory for a moment, and in the general silence Zayn hears him release a breath. Like he was nervous. _Harry Styles, Wonder Boy, nervous_. Sure.

People tentatively start a clap, which grows to a decent one before Professor Trackel smiles and drops the room into silence again just by existing. “Well,” he sighs. “Of course the piece is very easy for the normal level of a piano major, but considering that you’re not in fact a piano major, that was very good, Mr. Styles. I haven’t heard a Waltz 64-2 played so beautifully since our very own Zayn Malik played it at his Piano Level 2 exam.”

Zayn rolls his eyes and closes them, immediately forcing a smile out when he sees the Professor and some people stare at him. Harry does too, and then stands up. “I am incredibly honoured of being compared to our very own Zayn Malik,” he declares, in a tone too utterly polite not to be mocking.

Some people snort. Louis covers his face with his hands to hide the way he’s probably cackling.

Professor Trackel just grins, because Zayn reckons the whole teaching staff also knows about Harry and Zayn’s feud. Their fights have a tendency to be loud, so much louder than the other kinds of fights they have in hidden spots, panting and grunting and hating each other in other ways.

Harry shakes hands with Trackel, and then, without even looking at Zayn, goes back to his seat, retrieves his violin case, and leaves the room.

Louis does great on his exam, luckily, but Zayn is still angry despite being relieved and happy for his friend.

+

“I hate you,” Harry grunts as Zayn presses him into the wall by pushing his palm in between his shoulder blades while he roughly fucks into him from behind.

Zayn chuckles and groans. “Yeah? I hate you too,” he answers, only snapping his hips harder “Compared to _me_, you’re _honoured_, yeah?”

Harry laughs. “Didn’t seem the place to argue that I can’t be compared to you ‘cause I’m _better_.”

Zayn growls something, although not even he knows what he means to say. He pushes Harry harder into the wall of the broom closet, until Harry’s cheek is pressed so hard against the wall that his mouth gets all scrunched. Zayn keeps pounding into him, his other hand holding his hip to make sure he’ll get bruises.

“I hate you,” Zayn says while he comes, making sure to stroke Harry’s dick to make him come as well, because if he doesn’t, then Harry will have the weapon of _you’re not even good at making me come_.

Harry does come. He shakes with it, emitting a whine when Zayn’s hand on his back runs down, nails scratching the skin in four parallel red lines.

“I hate you too,” Harry says when they button their jeans, and then he leaves without looking at Zayn, like he did earlier in the examination room.

+

Zayn’s own exam for Level 5 is in three days, so he spends them in Piano Room 1, mostly, using all his charms on Mrs. Plum, one of the keepers, to convince her to let him stay at least a couple more hours after official closing time, the night before the exam. Zayn doesn't have a piano at his place, he hasn’t spared enough money yet.

It’s happened quite often, that Mrs. Plum has allowed Zayn to stay after locking everything up except the small back entrance for the cleaning staff, giving only that one key to Zayn in exchange for the promise to make extra sure to lock after himself and return the key to her the next day.

Mrs. Plum rolls her eyes when Zayn asks, pouting and begging her not to be the reason Zayn fails his exam and ruins his career forever. “You boys, I swear,” she scoffs. “Then go ahead, stay. I can’t leave you the key, though. I already gave it to the cute, polite boy with the curls and the dimples who plays the violin. He also wanted to stay tonight.”

_Ah, fuck me_, Zayn thinks, but smiles anyway. “Then can you please tell him not to lock me here and come look for me before he leaves?” he asks as innocently as he can.

Mrs. Plum rolls her eyes again. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll go tell him now. Don’t overwork yourself and don’t overuse your eyelashes, you flirty git,” she mutters, not unkindly, and leaves Zayn in Room 1.

“Fucking Styles, always in my fucking way,” he rumbles to himself before resuming his study.

He’s got the piece all figured out, he just needs a couple hours to work on the _crescendos_ a little bit, and then he can fuck off. It’s Liszt, which is never a good thing, and it’s also _Hungarian Rhapsody no. 2_, which is worse.

Zayn hates the rhapsodies with a passion, and he thinks every fucking musician in that college will agree with him. Overrated, tricky little shits of pieces.

He concentrates until his knuckles hurt and his fingertips lose sensibility, but in the end he manages to get where he wants to. He always does.

When he’s done for the day, he cracks his back and piles up all his loose scores, sliding them into his backpack, and that’s when he hears a faint, angry violin sound coming from upstairs.

He rolls his eyes, but after he’s done with packing up, he comes to terms with the fact that if he’s leaving and Harry’s staying, he should tell him so that he’ll remember to lock up after himself and not get Mrs. Plum in any trouble.

So Zayn sighs and starts to climb the wide marble steps to the floor above, the Strings department.

He recognizes the piece Harry’s playing as soon as he can hear the music better. It’s Brahms’s _[Hungarian Dance no. 5](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHk5HdS-aNg)_, and Zayn chuckles a little at the two of them being preoccupied with Hungarian things that day, apparently.

He can’t see Harry properly from where he—admittedly—hides next to the doorframe of the room. Zayn only makes out that Harry’s standing, violin trapped between his shoulder and chin as he plays. Zayn has seen the tiny, small stretch marks Harry has under his chin from playing for hours on end. He briefly thinks talent always shows on the body, because Harry has his chin marks, and Zayn has the slight curving inwards of his pinkies.

Harry is in almost total darkness, only a small light turned on by a desk in the room, and his loose curls bounce while he plays the piece a bit more angrily than probably necessary, with a recorded piano backing track accompanying him. Zayn can’t see any scores. He rolls his eyes. _Does he fucking learn every piece by heart in three fucking seconds?_, he thinks outragedly.

By the time Harry gets to the _vivace_, Zayn realizes he’s drumming his fingers on his thigh, following Harry’s piece like he’s playing it on the piano with him. He shakes his head and stops, because _no_, cheers, not gonna play with Harry Styles ever again even if it’s just by drumming fingers on a surface.

Zayn’s had enough of that a year earlier when they had to play fucking Mozart together.

Instead, he decides to be gracious and not interrupt Harry in the middle of his piece, and goes to the bathroom.

He doesn’t bother turning on the lights, because the streetlights outside the big window in the bathroom are light enough, and quickly relieves himself, flushing the toilet afterwards.

Just as he’s about to open the stall door, a loud bang almost gives him a heart attack, and someone stumbles inside the loo, breathing heavily and wheezing like they’re choking, and stopping by the sinks, judging from where the noises come to Zayn.

It’s Harry Styles, of course. Zayn’s stomach drops a little when he hears him gasp and heave, because he understands those noises. Harry’s having a panic attack, or he’s at least very close to having one.

Zayn quietly opens the door of his stall, walking silently to the sinks, where Harry is giving him his back and not looking in the mirror. Zayn hears a rattle, and a moment later he sees Harry frantically shake two pills in his palm from a small bottle he recognizes immediately, and then lower his face under the faucet to drink them down.

Zayn frowns. He didn’t know Harry took anxiety meds.

“Styles?” he says, as quietly as he can.

Harry jolts. He turns with his whole body, shoulders hunched like he’s prepared to receive a beating, and his eyes are shot open. They look at each other, and the lighting is not great, but Zayn can still see the dark bags under Harry’s eyes, and the way he’s still shaking and breathing too rapidly.

“What the fuck are you doing? You spying on me, now?” Harry snarls.

Zayn takes a deep breath not to lash out at him, because they can be arseholes to each other, but they both have to have the strength for it, and Harry seems a breath away from passing out in that moment. So he just shrugs and steps to one of the sinks, washing his hands. “I was just pissing,” he tells Harry. “And I heard you panic. Those anxiety meds? Don’t overdo it. They get you hooked. What’s that, Zoloft? Luvox? Prozac?” he adds.

He doesn’t need to do it, doesn’t need to warn Harry against the effects of anxiety medication, and doesn’t need to ask which kind of meds he’s taking. But Zayn does know what they can do, because those meds fucked Perrie up almost beyond recovery, when they were still together, and he wouldn’t wish that upon even his worst enemy. And Harry Styles is quite literally his worst enemy.

Harry doesn’t answer for a moment, but when he does, it’s snarky and loud. “What the fuck does it matter to you?”

Zayn tries not to look perturbed by the growly scream and the shakiness of Harry’s voice. “We can hate each other, doesn’t mean I want you to die, you know,” he says slowly, still not looking at Harry, and drying his hands on a paper towel he pulls out of the dispenser on the wall.

That’s when Harry’s hand collides with his shoulder, shoving at him. “It’s Xanax,” Harry replies with teary eyes. “I bet you’re laughing right now, this is just what you needed to find out, isn’t it? Harry Styles, wonder boy, taking anxiety meds and having panic attacks. Must be fucking hilarious to you, huh?”

“Do you see me laughing?” Zayn asks calmly.

Harry doesn’t reply.

“Answer. Do you see me laughing, Styles?”

Harry still doesn’t reply. It pisses Zayn off, that anyone would think he’d _laugh _about anxiety, because _Zayn _of all people would never, ever do that. So the fact that Harry thought he would, even if it’s Harry Styles and they don’t know shit about each other, makes something just pop in Zayn’s brain, and he starts to walk against Harry, making him back off until his shoulders hit the tiled wall of the dark bathroom. “You don’t deserve to know this about me,” Zayn says in the quietest, coldest whisper he can manage, “but my ex girlfriend almost died on this shit, in my arms, when I didn’t know what to do about it. So no, Styles. I’m not laughing, and the mere fact that you thought I would is the reason I hate you more than I hated you five minutes ago.”

Harry stares at Zayn for what feels like an hour. And then, without speaking, he grabs Zayn by a shoulder and pulls him closer, bucking his hips so that their crotches are rubbing together, his head lowered with his forehead on Zayn’s collarbone.

Zayn should not do this, not now and maybe not ever again. But the movement of Harry’s hips is all it takes for him to get completely hard, and he hates Harry in that moment, more than he could ever say.

They can do this. They can fuck each other through their hate, they’ve always done this.

So Zayn grabs Harry by the hips, and drags him away from the wall, pushing him against a sink so that Harry braces himself with his hands on it, his head still lowered as Zayn goes behind him and almost rips his stupidly tight jeans open.

When their dicks are out, Zayn realizes he can’t stand Harry being silent and with his head bowed, like he’s taking it passively. He needs Harry to hate him and to fight back, like they always do.

He grabs a fistful of Harry’s hair, and pulls to make him lift his face. They look at each other in the mirror over the sink, and Zayn whispers to Harry’s ear, not interrupting their eye contact. “Do you want this?” he asks, because he has to, he needs to know Harry wants this just as Zayn does.

Harry nods, not caring that the movement makes Zayn pull his hair more. “Yes. I want it. Make it hurt. I want it to hurt. Make me feel like I’m good for something.”

Maybe it’s the meds making him more loose-mouthed, or maybe it’s just whatever it is Harry deals with when he’s alone.

Zayn nods, retrieving a packet of lube he luckily has in his wallet, and coating his fingers in it before slipping two of them in Harry’s hole. Harry groans and immediately pushes back on Zayn’s fingers. Zayn grins. “You want more already,” he comments.

Harry nods.

Zayn doesn’t find it in his heart to make another comment about Harry gagging for it, because he’s not better off, not in the slightest. He’s so hard it’s starting to hurt, and Harry always feels so tight around him, even if it’s just his fingers. He preps him for a while, until Harry’s panting and whining, and then he rolls a condom on, and pushes into Harry while holding his hair like it’s reins.

Harry screams and tilts his head backwards, following the lead of Zayn’s hand in his hair, and he looks positively obscene in the mirror, his pale neck all arched and his mouth open.

They don’t speak.

Zayn takes care of making it as quick and hard as possible, because he doesn’t care if Harry Styles has issues. Everybody has them. And he hates Harry Styles, so whatever it is he’s going through, he will have to find someone else if he wants help, not Zayn. Because the only thing Zayn wants and will give him is this, the pain and the pleasure, the fucking the hate out of each other and making it hurt because they both know it feels good to hurt, sometimes.

Always, if it’s them.

Harry comes unexpectedly after a particularly deep thrust of Zayn’s, which makes him stand on his toes, the back of his thighs plastered to the front of Zayn’s. Harry opens his eyes and mouth like he’s surprised, one hand going from the sink to the wall in front of him, and then he comes, hard, making a mess of the sink itself and the mirror too.

It’s so interesting to watch, Harry Styles coming. It’s like every time it’s the best orgasm he’s ever had, always arching more, gaping more, shouting louder if that’s something they can do. They’re almost always surrounded by people, so Zayn doesn’t get to hear Harry’s orgasm groans much, but every time he manages, it’s hot and unnerving, how Harry can be perfect even when he comes, untouched, by Zayn’s doing.

It sets Zayn’s own orgasm off anyway, and he grunts a curse, biting hard at Harry’s shoulder and leaving the circling indent of his teeth on Harry’s skin as he also comes, spilling inside the condom and with his hips stuttering, which makes Harry’s whole body rattle and shake with him.

When Zayn looks at Harry in the mirror again, Harry is panting and his eyes are huge, and he’s staring right back at Zayn. “I hate you, Malik,” Harry says, but for some reason, it feels weak and lazy, like Harry can’t even be bothered to say it.

Zayn chuckles. “I hate you too, Styles,” he replies, and then moves to get out, quickly, because that stare of Harry in the darkness feels like too much, somehow. “Lock the door after yourself, don’t get Mrs. Plum into any trouble or I’ll fucking kill you,” he adds for good measure, and then goes out of the bathroom as fast as he can without looking like he’s running.

As he goes home, that thing Harry Styles said keeps replaying in his mind.

_I want it to hurt. Make me feel like I’m good for something._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you're thinking :)
> 
> I am also on Tumblr as wont-you-stay-till-the-am.tumblr.com, come hit me up if you wanna talk.


	3. Nocturnes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zayn doesn’t know why he does what he does. He only knows that those two lads are being frankly quite rude, and he doesn’t take kindly on people bullying _his_ prey. And Harry is still shaking while he stares emptily at the books in front of him, and Zayn hears him take a harsh breath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **WARNING:** Please, please read the tags and the following disclaimers carefully. 
> 
> This story deals with: **Drug abuse, alcohol abuse, addiction and alcoholism, anger issues**. 
> 
> As for what concerns the sex, it will mostly be "normal" angry/rough sex, but there will a couple scenes where it will be quite violent. It will always be consensual, there is absolutely no dealing with rape and the like in this fic, but it will be intense.
> 
> If any of these themes bother you, or if you think they might hurt your sensitivity, please DO NOT read this story.

Zayn’s exam goes great, and he’s sure Harry’s goes great as well.

He knows the violin people are in the next room, having their own exams, and he knows Harry finally fucking showed up for the test, because Zayn hears him at some point, ten minutes or so before he does his own exam.

Zayn has never actively _watched _or _listened to _Harry play his violin, but he’s been forced to play with him once, and even though they pointedly avoided looking at each other more than necessary, Zayn heard Harry’s violin notes and technique.

It’s like Harry’s notes are cleaner, clearer and swifter than any other strings Zayn has ever heard. It’s like the bow flows on the chords like water, it’s so light and smooth. So, at least in his own mind, Zayn can admit that he could recognize Harry playing even from another room, and that’s what he does that day.

He hears Harry play his pieces for his exam, and he also hears the fucking applause afterwards. Zayn rolls his eyes as he walks to the piano when it’s his own turn, but he can’t fight a grin as he thinks _Good. Keep not failing your fucking exams so that we can keep hating and fucking each other._

Zayn does brilliantly and also gets his own stupid clap, not that he minds.

After that, he has lunch in the cafeteria with Louis, who is determined to stuff Zayn with his own weight in dessert, judging by the amount he sets on his tray before slamming it on the table in front of Zayn and giving him a smacking kiss on the forehead. “Cheese cake for the best fucking pianist in this whole damn building!” he shouts.

Zayn shushes him, clearing his throat and looking around a bit embarrassedly. He likes to know he’s good, but showing off is not something he cares about doing. He leaves that to Harry fucking Styles, who always saunters to his fucking exams, when he even bothers to go, plays his pieces and then saunters back out of the rooms like he’s got more important shit to do.

As soon as he thinks about him, Zayn sees him. He’s sitting at a table with Niall Horan and Liam Payne, his best mates who are both in Percussions, and he looks like he’s passively participating in the conversation, murmuring one-syllable words and playing with his food rather than eating it. Zayn curses himself when he tries to check if he’s just in a bad mood, or if he just took one of his anxiety pills.

“I think there’s something wrong with the poor sod,” Louis comments in a mutter.

Zayn hums questioningly, and then sees Louis's eyes pointed on Harry as well. “What?”

“Harry Styles. He’s been looking like shit lately, I thought you’d be the first to notice, considering that he’s one of the very few people in this music college that you care about.”

“I don’t _care _about him,” Zayn corrects as fast as he can, “I hate him.”

Louis rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. The day you finally fuck the shit out of each other and solve your tension, the conservatory is probably gonna have another gala concert.”

_Already happens almost every other week, babe, and it doesn’t solve shit_, Zayn wants to reply, but instead he just grimaces and attacks his cheese cake. “He’s got anxiety. He’s on meds,” he says, though, very quietly. He knows it’s most certainly not something Harry wants to divulge, but Zayn knows Louis is safe, and he won’t tell anyone.

Louis blinks and gapes. “Really?”

Zayn nods. “Yeah. Takes the same shit Pez used to take.”

“It’s not _shit _if you need it and take it responsibly, Zed,” Louis replies with a small, sad frown. “Pez overdid it, and got hooked on it like those meds were drugs. That’s what is not supposed to happen.”

“She almost overdosed, almost died and scared the shit out of me, making me hate those meds for the rest of my life,” Zayn declares coldly. “I told him too, when I saw him take the pills.”

Louis gapes. “You did? You never talk about Perrie!”

Zayn shrugs. “I think he needed someone to warn him. Might as well be me and not anyone he cares about, or cares about him.”

“You gotta cut him some slack, Zed,” Louis murmurs.

Zayn tries his best not to snap at Louis, because he knows, deep down, that if it wasn’t Harry Styles, he would be kinder about the whole ordeal. So he takes a deep breath, and munches on another bite of cheese cake before replying. “He doesn’t want me to cut him any slack, Lou,” he says. “Believe me, he doesn’t.”

+

Louis still has a couple classes that day, but Zayn is free, so they hug and say goodbye outside the cafeteria, and then Zayn walks home, yawning and already having erotic thoughts about how soft his bed and pillow will be.

When he’s almost home, though, he passes by the music bookstore at the corner, and Zayn grins to himself, deciding to indulge himself as a prize for another exam well done. He gets inside, greeting the old lady at the register with a smile and a wave, and then immediately ducks into the stationery aisle, giggling a little as he examines the products on the shelves. He needs new music notebooks anyway, and that bookstore has the best ones, thick and resistant, with the right paper quality that doesn’t let the ink seep through and mess up the notes on the other side of the page.

Zayn decides on one, and then proceeds to start choosing another one. Maybe he’ll even throw a couple score collections in the mix, he’s feeling generous towards himself.

His eyes fall on a beautiful edition with the scores for all of Chopin’s Nocturnes. He gapes a little, and he knows he doesn’t really _need _it, because he already has one, and he has most of the Nocturnes memorized already anyway. But this edition is so _beautiful_, and it also has a violin line for all the pieces. Despite Harry Styles, Zayn quite likes strings, and it would be _amazing _to have that edition on his bookshelf. It also has an introduction by Brigitte Engerer and her own notes, how sick is that?

It’s the last copy, and when he moves to grab it, another hand grabs it too.

It’s absurdly cliché, or it would be, if Zayn didn’t know to _whom _the long-fingered hand belongs to.

“Saw it first,” Zayn hisses.

Harry Styles hums. “Can play it better,” he retorts.

Zayn looks at him, finding a shit-eating grin on his admittedly beautiful face, and the absurd desire to just punch him in that face is almost unbearable. Neither of them lets go of the book, and they’re extremely close, and Louis is right.

Harry looks like shit.

“What the fuck’s happening to you,” Zayn mutters before realizing he’s speaking out loud.

Harry blinks, and his face hardens a little. “You’re invading my personal space. Again. That’s what’s happening to me.”

“Rarely saw you complaining,” Zayn grins.

Harry shrugs more nonchalantly than necessary. “If there’s a follow-up to our bickering, then it’s alright,” he says like he doesn’t really care about it. “But I doubt there’s gonna be one here, unless you plan on asking Mrs. Finch for the key to her staff room so that you can let me fuck you brainless—even _more_ brainless—against a table or summat.”

Zayn arches an eyebrow. “Or maybe I would fuck _you _brainless, Styles.”

Harry hums. “Nah. I feel like you need a reward for nailing your exam. My dick would be the best reward you could ask for.”

Zayn frowns, and forces himself to stop their back and forth. “How do you even know I did well on my exam?”

Harry rolls his eyes. “_No one plays the Hungarian Rhapsodies like Zayn Malik_,” he says batting his eyelashes and with a high-pitched tone. “College’s full of your fucking groupies, I think if anyone ever saw you take a shit they’d still giggle and say that no one takes a shit like Zayn Malik.”

Zayn snorts, because it’s honestly funny. “That’s rich, coming from you, Styles Almighty.”

“Yeah well, ‘m failing my last year though, am I not?” he replies, the mockery gone from his tone and replaced by coldness.

Zayn is aware of how close they still are, how they’re still looking at each other in the eyes like they both want to see the other break first, and how they’re still both clutching at the last copy of those Nocturnes. He has a snarky remark at the ready, but before he can open his mouth, he hears some whispers behind them.

“Yeah it’s him, I recognize him from the fucking pineapple shirt and the curls.”

Zayn takes in that Harry really is wearing a shirt with pineapples, but doesn’t have time to do much else, because Harry’s eyes widen like he’s scared, and he turns, giving his back to the voice and pretending to be busy with the books. The hand still holding Chopin’s Nocturnes with Zayn is shaking a bit wildly.

“Can you believe we’re cousins with him and we don’t even say hi to each other?”

“Would you want to? He’s a fucking train-wreck.”

“But still… D’you think he’s gonna bring someone to the wedding?”

The first bloke snorts. “Yeah sure. Who’s he gonna bring? Never been able to keep a fucking relationship since… well, his sister fucked off to the States and his Mum, well…”

Zayn doesn’t know why he does what he does. He only knows that those two lads are being frankly quite rude, and he doesn’t take kindly on people bullying _his _prey. And Harry is still shaking while he stares emptily at the books in front of him, and Zayn hears him take a harsh breath.

So he lets go of the Nocturnes book, and gently makes Harry turn, wrapping his arms around his neck with a smile and delicately knocking their foreheads together.

Harry blinks so furiously that Zayn is worried he’s gonna have a stroke. “What the f…”

“Shut up, Styles,” he mouths, and then, louder, not enough to look like it’s staged, but enough that those two behind them will hear, “Remind me when’s the wedding, babe? Gotta make sure I have my suit ready.”

Harry gapes. His eyes are almost going cross for how close their faces are, and his mouth is open, with those filthy lips that always get so swollen when he slides them angrily up and down Zayn’s dick. Nonetheless, Harry doesn’t push Zayn away and doesn’t shout at him to mind his own fucking business. He rolls his eyes, smiling in a way that Zayn has never seen, like a _fond _smile, and he wraps his arms around Zayn’s middle in return, still holding the Nocturnes. “It’s Friday, babe, honestly, I think I told you a hundred times already.”

Zayn chuckles, and draws his head back a little so that he can poke at Harry’s nose with his pointer finger. “’M forgetful, you know. Just want to make sure everything goes well. Wouldn’t want your family to think you’re dating a slob.”

Harry chuckles, and Zayn thinks it kinda sounds like a honest laugh. “You, a slob? Never.”

Zayn sees that Harry’s eyes still look like he’s a deer caught in headlights, darting left and right like he wants to find some place to hide. _He wants to go away. I might as well allow him to do so before he has a fucking breakdown in front of his evil cousins_.

Zayn smiles, and kisses him on the nose. “You’re gonna be late, babe,” he says. “Best if you start going, yeah? I’ll see you later.”

Harry nods, frantically, and then they extricate from their fake PDA. Harry grins and pulls a little at Zayn’s topknot, or better, _more _than a little, and Zayn has to hold back a pained hiss. Then Harry’s going for the register, completely bypassing the two lads who are openly staring at them.

Zayn looks at them with an arched eyebrow, and they start, immediately going for the door.

Only when Harry Styles is long gone does Zayn realize that so is the Nocturnes edition.

He almost growls. _Fucking Styles_.

+

Zayn doesn’t see Harry Styles until Wednesday, because he doesn’t have any classes, and he spends the next two days sleeping to make up for the loss of sleep that fucking exam brought with it.

So, it’s only on Wednesday, when he catches sight of Harry going out of the violin room, that he remembers about their little charade.

Zayn doesn’t know what to do, because part of him only did it to make Harry _owe _him, but another part genuinely couldn’t stand _someone else _get on Harry’s nerve like Zayn himself does. Like _only_ Zayn himself should. _He’s mine to torment_, he’d thought petulantly and pettily.

But now that he thinks about it, he realizes the problem at hand. Because if Harry shows up without a date to whoever’s wedding it is in two days, he’s gonna have an even harder time.

So he jogs a little after Harry, calling him a couple times. Harry turns, sees that it’s Zayn, rolls his eyes and keeps going.

Zayn finally catches up with him, grinning. “Not even gonna wait for your _date_?”

Harry grunts something and then shoves at Zayn’s shoulder. “What the fuck was that anyway?” he shouts. “Now I have an even _bigger _problem, so cheers for that, I really needed more stress, Malik.”

Zayn doesn’t let his grin falter. “That’s why I’m graciously coming to your rescue, again. What time on Friday?”

He should let this go. It’s starting to really feel like being five and pulling pigtails on the playground, but Zayn is noticing how sleep-deprived and almost sick Harry looks, and he egoistically can’t afford to lose his only match in that fucking music college.

Harry finally stops walking, and blinks. “What?”

“The wedding,” Zayn rolls his eyes. “What time are we going?”

Harry keeps his mouth open, and Zayn really can’t help it. He makes sure no one’s around the corridor, and then slides two fingers into that unnerving mouth, backing Harry into the wall by sheer surprise rather than strength. Harry’s lips automatically close around the digits, and his eyelids flutter a little.

Zayn only takes his fingers out of Harry’s mouth when Harry’s eyes flash angrily, and he swirls his tongue around the phalanxes, making Zayn get hard on the spot. “I said,” Zayn growls, hoping it will sound threatening instead of aroused, “the wedding on Friday. What time.”

“Why are you even doing this?” Harry snarls.

“Because, Harry Styles, your stress and hate and anger has to come from _me_, not anybody else.”

Harry laughs mockingly. “I think this might be the most presumptuous thing you’ve ever said, and you’ve said a fuckton of them since I spoke to you the first time.”

Zayn grins. “Deal with it, _babe_,” he replies stressing the pet name. “It’s done now. Do you want my fucking help or not?”

“I don’t need your help, I never did and never will,” Harry replies, but while he does, he grinds his hips and their groins rub together. They’re both hard in their jeans. “But okay,” he adds when their clothed erections slide against each other.

Zayn chuckles, despite the fact that he’s on his way to being properly hard already, as it always happens when Harry Styles makes him see red, which is all the fucking time. So he pins Harry to the wall some more, pressing their crotches together in earnest, and revelling in the aroused gasp coming from Harry’s mouth. He shoves a hand in Harry’s jeans, still looking around every once in a while, but he knows the building is close to deserted at that time of the afternoon.

Harry groans a little when Zayn’s hand wraps around his dick and starts tugging, quickly and aggressively. He wants to make a mess out of Harry, make him come so fast and hard he won’t even know what’s hit him. He wants to see the surprise and scorn in his eyes for coming in his jeans against the wall of one of the principal corridors of the conservatory.

“’S dangerous,” Harry pants, “anyone could see us, fuck…”

“I can stop,” Zayn whispers in the shell of Harry’s ear.

Harry shakes his head. “No, don’t stop, please, don’t stop.”

“Begging already,” Zayn scoffs, but quickens his pace.

Harry comes embarrassingly quickly, and Zayn doesn’t comment on that, but keeps his smug smirk for the whole time it takes Harry to grab his wrist and shove his hand away before doing up his fly as best as he can, his cheeks pink.

Zayn looks at his come-covered hand, and then keeps his eyes on Harry’s while he licks it clean. Harry’s gaze flashes with something that might be arousal, again, and then he slumps against the wall, breathing heavily. “Five,” he says then.

Zayn hums questioningly.

Harry rolls his eyes. “Your handjob skills,” he specifies, blatantly lying, Zayn’s sure, “and the time we need to leave for the wedding on Friday.”

Zayn laughs, and retrieves a piece of paper from his backpack, scribbling his address and phone number and then tossing it to Harry. “We’re going with my car, I’ve seen you drive, and no thanks. Call me when you’re outside my apartment,” he says, and then leaves Harry there, a bit dumbfounded.

_What the fuck am I even doing?_, he can’t help but think as he walks away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for already becoming so invested in this! 
> 
> As usual, let me know what you're thinking and come chat with me on tumblr at wont-you-stay-till-the-am.tumblr.com if you want.


	4. First names

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So you say you hate this bloke’s guts, and then you agree to be his fake date to a wedding. Perfectly logic,” Louis comments.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **WARNING:** Please, please read the tags and the following disclaimers carefully. 
> 
> This story deals with: **Drug abuse, alcohol abuse, addiction and alcoholism, anger issues**. 
> 
> As for what concerns the sex, it will mostly be "normal" angry/rough sex, but there will a couple scenes where it will be quite violent. It will always be consensual, there is absolutely no dealing with rape and the like in this fic, but it will be intense.
> 
> If any of these themes bother you, or if you think they might hurt your sensitivity, please DO NOT read this story.
> 
> Usual disclaimer: I don't know or own any of the characters present in this work. I only own the plot and any eventual original character.

“So you say you hate this bloke’s guts, and then you agree to be his fake date to a wedding. Perfectly logic,” Louis comments from where he’s sitting on Zayn’s bed while Zayn stands in front of his mirror and struggles with the tie.

“Why are you even here in my apartment? I don’t remember inviting you to come over.”

“I spend more time in your house than in mine, Zayn,” Louis replies with an eye roll. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Failing to tie my necktie, clearly.”

Louis scoffs and then reaches for Zayn’s neck, swatting his hands away and taking care of the necktie. “I’m serious, Zed. What are you doing?”

Zayn shrugs. “He was about to have a fucking meltdown. I didn’t think.”

“Clearly,” Louis arches an eyebrow. “Don’t make a fucking scene in front of his whole family, though, yeah?”

Zayn grunts and shrugs on his suit jacket when Louis is done. “’M not stupid, Lou. I won’t. That would defeat the purpose of helping him so that he’ll be forever in debt with me,” he grins.

Louis seems unimpressed. “Yeah, sure.”

Zayn doesn’t have time to retort before his phone goes off. He sees the unknown number and answers. “Zayn Malik.”

A heavy sigh comes from the other end. “Oh, okay. I thought everything was a huge prank,” Harry says.

Zayn grins. “You wound me, my love.”

“I’m outside your apartment. Come out or we’ll be fucking late.”

Zayn doesn’t even bother replying, and just ends the call, wearing his shoes and then grabbing his wallet and keys, pocketing them together with his phone.

Louis follows him to the door, and Zayn locks up the house. When he’s done, he sees Louis smile and wave at someone, probably Harry, but Zayn doesn’t look at him. He kicks at Louis’s ankle, instead. “Stop fucking waving at him. He’s Harry Styles.”

Louis chuckles. “I know, and he’s fucking fit. You might want to look. In hindsight, this was probably the best idea you’ve had all year.”

Zayn still doesn’t turn. Louis rolls his eyes and hugs him, saying bye and “Text me if you feel like decapitating him too much”, and then goes.

Zayn takes a deep breath, and finally goes down the front steps of his house, and that’s when he catches sight of Harry.

Zayn has never seen him in a suit, if you don’t count the plain black ones they have to wear on important occasions at their college, and he’ll be damned if he’ll ever say this out loud, but Louis is right. Harry Styles _is _fit. He’s wearing a light blue suit patterned with leaves and flowers in shades of golds, probably Gucci if the flashy fantasy is anything to go by, or at least some other expensive brand anyway; the shirt under the jacket is black, with no tie, but a flowy, equally black ribbon. His hair is loose and curly, and he’s sporting a smug smirk as he leans with his arse against Zayn’s car.

“Arse off my car,” Zayn mutters, breaking their eye contact and pressing the button on his keys so the car will unlock.

Harry doesn’t even answer, he just goes for the passenger door and slides into the seat. Zayn does the same and sits at the wheel, closing the door with more force than actually necessary.

“Thanks. For doing this,” Harry says, quietly, and without looking at Zayn.

Zayn starts the engine, and does his best to keep grinning. “You owe me big time, Styles.”

“Yeah. I hate you, Malik,” Harry sighs.

Zayn chuckles. “I hate you too.”

Zayn doesn’t exactly know what to say, or if they’re even supposed to talk, so he fumbles a bit with his car radio until he settles on a classical music station he never listens to, but he thinks it’s a safe bet. “Next on, Chopin’s _Polonaise no. 53_, one of the most difficult pieces to play, if I say so myself,” the speaker comments.

Zayn snorts, and when he does, he realizes that so does Harry. They look at each other, and then, absurdly, they both start laughing. Hard. “Difficult?” Harry wheeze. “Oh, fucking hell, I wish _everything _was as difficult as this.”

“Right? Fucking Polonaise 53. Just play anything by Rachmaninov and then we can talk about difficult!” Zayn agrees.

Harry nods, wiping at his eyes. “Yeah, fuck, totally,” he says.

They stop laughing abruptly when they realize they’re _agreeing _on something, and they blink at each other for a moment, speechless, while the pianist keeps going on with the Polonaise.

Zayn swears that Harry’s cheeks turn a bit redder when he interrupts their eye contact and turns away, staring ahead. “Keep your fucking eyes on the road, Malik. If I gotta die, it won’t be with you,” he mutters.

Zayn chuckles and turns as well, focusing on driving. “Imagine if anyone in the college saw us right now,” he can’t help but say.

Harry scoffs. “God help us. I have a dignity to preserve.”

“I think both our dignities went to fuck themselves a little the night of the gala concert.”

“Which would have gone ten times better if you could keep up your tempo for bloody Mozart’s _Sonata no. 21_, Malik.”

Zayn shrugs. “Everybody thought we were amazing anyway. You said so yourself when I got mad because we sucked.”

“But we weren’t amazing, and we did suck,” Harry replies firmly, “We are a thousand times better than that, separately and probably even together, if we could act like proper fucking human beings and not be at each other’s throat all the time.”

Zayn knows Harry’s right, but it’s not like he can admit that. “Yeah, but then we wouldn’t have hate-fucked after that concert and we wouldn’t have kept having mind-blowing orgasms fuelled by our rage, innit?”

Harry clears his throat. “Bold of you to assume the orgasms you give me are mind-blowing. They’re average at best.”

“Then why do you keep letting me fuck you, and fucking me?” Zayn asks, more sharply than he intends, because it bothers him, that Harry won’t admit the sex they have is the best they’ve ever had, even if Zayn won’t admit it either. “I watch you when we fuck, Styles. Tell me there’s anyone else who gives you full-body orgasms with a quickie, come on.”

Harry doesn’t reply for a moment. Zayn is keeping his eyes on the road, so he can’t look at Harry, but he hears what Harry answers, even if his tone is quiet and a bit reluctant. “I don’t fuck anyone else,” he says.

Zayn’s stomach drops a little when the words leave Harry’s mouth, because he realizes that… he isn’t fucking anyone else either. And it’s not because he doesn't have the chance. There’s always a party, always a club, and Zayn hasn’t gone out much because of exam season, but if he had wanted to, he could have. And he knows it probably took all of Harry’s pride to say that, so he decides that the lines are a bit more blurred today, and he can allow himself to repay Harry with the same honesty, just today. “Me neither,” he answers, and then, “It’s easier this way. You’re always available,” he adds, because he wants to break this weird moment.

Harry chuckles bitterly at that. “Yeah. You too. Especially as soon as my mouth is even remotely close to your dick.”

“Which is all the time. You’d think my dick’s a fucking lollipop for how eager you are to put it in your mouth every time.”

Harry laughs, and Zayn thinks that it’s a honest laugh, like he honestly thinks Zayn’s comeback was funny. _What the fuck’s happening? Why aren’t we really at each other’s throat already? We’ve been in an enclosed space for twenty minutes already._

They don’t talk that much again, preferring to listen to the radio rather than shower each other in snarky comments, which is also weird. Harry looks out of the window most of the time, checking his Maps app every once in a while to make sure Zayn isn’t fucking up his directions, which he isn’t, cheers.

When the app says that they’re about to reach their destination in fifteen minutes, Harry starts being a bit jittery, and then Zayn sees him take out his bottle of meds from the inside pocket of his jacket, and pop two pills in his mouth, gulping them down without any water.

“Hey, Styles,” he says warily after a couple minutes.

Harry hums. He isn’t shaking anymore, of course.

“You taking those things responsibly? I know it’s none of my business. But I meant what I said last time. That shit can fuck you up.”

Harry sighs, and then pats Zayn on the knee, leaving his hand there. It’s warm and steady. “It’s cute that you worry about me,” he replies with a grin, “but don’t. I have a prescription. _Harry Edward Styles, two pills when needed_. I can tell when I need ‘em from when I just need to be fucked raw against a wall, Malik.”

Zayn, despite it all, chuckles. “Glad to be of service.”

They shut up for another couple of minutes, and then Harry speaks again. “Did you break up with your girlfriend because of them? The pills?” he asks with a wince, like he’s scared Zayn will bite off his jugular.

But Zayn doesn’t, because he knows he told Harry about Perrie himself, so of course he was going to ask. All in all, Zayn is happy it’s just a question, and Harry is not using it as a weapon in one of their fights. “No,” he answers, smiling even. “We broke up a whole year after she recovered from that, so it wasn’t the pills. It was the cheating.”

He doesn’t even know why he gives Harry that piece of info. It’s like baring his fucking nape for Harry Styles to lower his axe on in the future, when Zayn will least expect it.

But Harry just sighs. “Oh. That sucks. My ex also cheated on me. And he cheated on me with a bloke in the fucking piano department, of all people.”

Zayn laughs. It’s frankly a bit hysterical, and Harry can’t imagine why Zayn is even laughing, but he laughs with him nonetheless, like Zayn’s laughter is contagious or something. “Perrie cheated on me with a fucking violinist,” he tells Harry when they calm down.

Harry sighs. “Can’t deny the charm of the strings,” he comments. “But I’m sure the fucking violinist didn’t have your cheekbones. Or my extremely beautiful hair. So, her loss.”

Zayn chuckles. “Yeah, and I’m sure your ex’s pianist wasn’t nearly as good with his fingers as I am. And didn’t have a mouth nearly as filthy as yours. So, his loss.”

The smile Harry gives Zayn is a bit different, a bit blinding. Zayn sees his dimples flash, which he rarely sees because Harry never actually smiles at him. He takes it, though, because the lines are blurred today, so he might as well. Harry’s hand is still on Zayn’s knee, and it rides a bit up Zayn’s thigh, not close enough to hint to anything, but enough that Zayn feels his dick twitch anyway.

“Watch your hands, Styles,” Zayn warns, with little to no heat in his tone. “Can’t introduce me to your Mum with a boner, can you?”

Harry scoffs, and pulls away from Zayn, leaning his head against the window. “My Mum won’t notice or won’t care, rest assured.”

Zayn doesn’t comment on that, and parks the car at the end of the already almost full parking lot of the hotel where the wedding reception is going to be held.

There’s quite a large group of people already inside the restaurant on the ground floor of the hotel, and Zayn immediately spots the bride and the groom, smiling widely and talking to two lads Zayn recognizes as the ones who made fun of Harry in the music store. He instinctively grabs Harry’s hand, intertwining their fingers, and Harry gives out a gasp, like he suddenly forgot Zayn was there.

“Chill out, Styles,” Zayn hisses, “Not a care in the fucking world, yeah?”

Harry nods, staring ahead and not looking at Zayn.

“How are you related to the lovebirds?” Zayn asks as they finally enter the room.

Harry gulps down some air. “The groom, Peter, is my cousin. Uncle John and Aunt Lisa’s son. The two blokes from the music store are his brothers. Paul and Mark. I hate them all. The bride’s nice though. Her name’s Angelique. She’s French. She asked me to wear this suit ‘cause it’s her favourite of mine and ‘cause her husband and brothers-in-law can’t tell a Gucci from an Armani, so she said I’m the only hope for fashion at her wedding.”

Zayn chuckles and nods, and then pulls a little at Harry’s hand, to make him walk closer. If they have to put on a show, it’ll better be good to fool the probably hundred people in the room. Harry goes willingly, plastering his side against Zayn’s like he needs support to walk, but Zayn doesn’t make any remarks on that, because he can see how nervous Harry is, and he doubts Harry can just take another one of his pills now.

“My Mum,” Harry says then, just as a lady walks over them with three flutes of champagne, handing one to Harry and one to Zayn.

“Harry, baby, you’re late!” she exclaims, but she’s smiling brightly.

She’s extremely beautiful, and Zayn now knows where Harry got the dimples. Harry smiles too, albeit a bit weakly. “Mum. This is Zayn. My, um, my boyfriend,” he says, “Zayn, this is my mother, Anne.”

Zayn thinks Harry Styles has never, _never_, not even once, called him by his first name. It sounds weird, but not bad. He smiles politely at Harry’s mother, shaking hands with her and therefore letting go of Harry’s own hand, because he’s also holding the champagne Anne gave him.

“So nice to meet you, I can’t believe Harry didn’t tell me about you any sooner!” she giggles.

Zayn laughs. “Eh, well, ma’am, Harry likes to keep some things close to his heart for a while before talking about them. Don’t you, babe?”

Harry is blinking and gaping at Zayn, and Zayn wraps an arm around his waist, squeezing his hip as hard as he can, to make him snap the fuck out of it. Harry laughs, shaking his hair a little bit, and nods. “Yeah. Sorry, Mum. Forgive me?” he says, grinning and flashing his dimples.

Anne rolls her eyes, but pats Harry on the shoulder nonetheless. “Get those dimples away from me, you can’t use them to fool the one who gave ‘em to you,” she grunts, with her own dimples still showing.

Zayn chuckles, and Harry does too.

“Come, come!” Anne says after a moment. “We have assigned tables, can you believe how _posh _this whole thing is?”

Zayn laughs openly, but Harry takes a deep breath, and “Mum,” is all he growls through his teeth. She ignores her son’s warning and keeps guiding them towards their table, stopping every now and then whenever some relatives of Harry’s want to say hi to him and not-so-subtly eye his plus one.

Zayn is on his best behaviour, making small talk and keeping his arm around Harry’s waist.

They finally manage to reach their table and sit. There’s two more people with them and Anne, Uncle Eric and Aunt Jessica, as Harry tells Zayn, and Zayn doesn’t ask about Anne being at the wedding by herself. Over the last year, he gathered enough info on Harry to know that his parents have been divorced since he was little, but he thought Harry had a stepfather as well? There’s no sign of him, though.

Harry looks a bit calmer when they start eating and everybody seems too concentrated on the food to give him and his mother the eye, for whatever reason. Zayn has half a mind to lean into Harry’s ear and ask about it, but then he thinks better of it, because he doesn’t want Harry to throw a strop. Anne is chatty, probably on her fourth glass of champagne, but Zayn can give her that. Weddings are unnerving and boring, and he’d probably need the booze as well, if he were her.

Harry rarely raises his eyes from the plate for the whole first course, and when he does, he just looks at his mother and then lowers his face again when she’s about to look back at him.

Zayn’s heart is constricting a little for no apparent reason, but he does lean into Harry some more, taking care to smile and lightly run his fingers through Harry’s curls. “You okay, Styles?” he asks, low enough that nobody at the table will hear.

Harry nods. “Yeah. Yeah. I’m okay. A little nervous.”

“There’s no reason, yeah? Everything’s going great. Your cousins are shocked that you have a boyfriend, but that’s fair, considering the boyfriend is _me_.”

Harry chuckles, and Zayn’s stomach settles a little. “Yeah, I guess,” Harry replies, but he stops looking at his food and stares at Zayn in the eyes.

Zayn doesn’t have to do it, but he does anyway. He leans forward and presses his lips to Harry’s, very lightly.

They never kiss when they fuck. This is hardly a kiss anyway, just a fleeting press of lips, and yet it feels like something’s shifting between them, when their lips touch. Harry takes a small breath through his nose, and then sighs it out, closing his eyes and sagging a little against Zayn, their lips pressing more together when he moves.

Zayn is still playing with the loose ends of Harry’s hair, and when Harry interrupts their fake kiss, they both sigh again. “Alright, babe?” Zayn asks, and maybe he means the pet name more than just for show. Maybe. Possibly. Not really, he’s sure.

Harry nods. “Yeah. Yeah.”

Zayn grins. “Good. Now stop invading my personal space or I’ll have to drag you to the loo and remind you of what we usually do when we invade each other’s space.”

Harry laughs, because he understands Zayn doesn’t mean it in that moment. It’s so fucking weird, to be actually just _joking _with Harry Styles, the bane of Zayn’s fucking existence, and yet it doesn’t feel wrong. Why doesn’t it feel wrong? Zayn doesn’t know.

Anne laughs a bit louder, catching their attention. She looks a bit tipsy, her cheeks gone a bright red and her eyes sparkling. “So cute,” she comments.

Zayn chuckles. “It’s Harry. Has to be cute by definition, innit?”

Anne coos. Harry kicks Zayn under the table, and growls another “Mum”.

First and second course go by smoothly, with close to zero conversation with Harry’s uncle and aunt. Zayn is starting to be a bit worried by the amount of wine Harry’s mother is drinking, but he confides Harry will take care of that if necessary. It’s his mother, after all.

While they eat, Zayn learns that Harry’s stepfather has died with cancer a year earlier, the day before the gala concert after which he and Harry started hooking up. Anne tells him, giggling a little because of the wine even if there’s no real reason to laugh about that, and Harry uselessly tries to shut his mother up. Zayn grabs him by the knee under the table, and looks at him with a smile, trying to tell him _Don’t stress about this, it’s okay_, but he cringes a little when he thinks that he absolutely didn’t notice Harry was going through such a personal loss while they fought.

He doesn’t tell Harry, but he also thinks Harry was incredibly brave, showing up for a fucking concert the day after the man who raised him as his own son passed.

He sees some people eye them when Anne’s voice telling the story reaches their ears, but he does his best to ignore them. Maybe the lady needs to just say it. Maybe she thinks Harry’s _boyfriend _has a right to know about Robin Twist. Either way, Zayn listens, even when he feels people arching their eyebrows.

Harry looks a bit defeated and a bit about to cry next to him, but Zayn keeps his attention on Anne, praying that her tipsiness doesn’t turn into a full-blown drunken scene, and he also keeps an arm around Harry’s middle, for the show, and to be sure people don’t notice how he’s shaking.

Anne seems to calm down after she talks to Zayn and Zayn gives her his condolences and his best reassuring smile, because she looks like she bloody needs it. Zayn might fight and hate-fuck Harry Styles all he wants, but his heart is not made of fucking stone.

There’s a pause between second course and dessert, and people start standing up and going around the room, or outside to smoke. Which is a great idea.

“Haz?” Zayn whispers into Harry’s ear. “Think your Mum’s gonna be okay if we go take some air? I think you need it, babe.”

It’s not said for the show, because no one else can hear it, and Harry must notice, because he stares at Zayn for an awfully long second before nodding. “Mum?” he says gently, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Zayn and I are gonna go get some air, that okay?”

Anne smiles, seemingly not having a care in the world. “Yes, baby, you go, I’m fine here.”

The uncle and aunt are also gone, and Zayn eyes the almost full bottle of wine a bit worriedly. He sees Harry do the same, but then Harry sighs, and just nods. “Okay. Be right back,” he tells his mother, giving her a kiss on the cheek to which she smiles and ruffles his hair, and the next moment Harry’s bolting out of the room.

Zayn easily goes after him, swiftly regaining the distance and grabbing him by a hand as soon as they’re outside. Harry squeals a little when Zayn pulls him to himself, knocking their foreheads together. “Get a grip, Styles, yeah?”

Harry just nods, and takes a breath. “I feel like I’m dying, Zayn.”

_He never calls me by my first name. Why does it sound so good from his lips? _“You ain’t dying, Harry,” Zayn replies nonetheless. “I can’t let you die. Who am I gonna fuck? We already established we’re in a monogamous hate-fuck buddy relationship.”

That gets a small laugh out of Harry, which Zayn counts as a victory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you're thinking :)
> 
> I am also on Tumblr as wont-you-stay-till-the-am.tumblr.com, come hit me up if you wanna talk.


	5. Mozart - Sonata no. 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zayn looks up at Harry. “Keep your tempo, Malik,” Harry whispers.  
Zayn winks. “Watch your _crescendos_, Styles.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **WARNING:** Please, please read the tags and the following disclaimers carefully. 
> 
> This story deals with: **Drug abuse, alcohol abuse, addiction and alcoholism, anger issues**. 
> 
> As for what concerns the sex, it will mostly be "normal" angry/rough sex, but there will a couple scenes where it will be quite violent. It will always be consensual, there is absolutely no dealing with rape and the like in this fic, but it will be intense.
> 
> If any of these themes bother you, or if you think they might hurt your sensitivity, please DO NOT read this story.
> 
> Then, a little bit of advice. This fic will mention some classical music pieces, and I provide links to them in the text because they're important, to me and to the fic. If you want and have time, I suggest you listen to them when they show up in the story, in particular the ones that will also appear as chapter titles. It'll make the scenes have more meaning and sense, and you'll know how I imagined them in my mind when I wrote them. Especially the two mentioned piano-violin duets.

They don’t speak to anybody as they walk through the paths lined with rose bushes in the yard surrounding the hotel. The night has fallen, and there are lanterns illuminating their walk. Zayn notices there are white tables in the distance, and a bigger table is also there, and he rolls his eyes, understanding dessert’s probably gonna be served there. He wonders if the newlyweds have assigned those tables as well. It feels a bit like an overkill, but the whole wedding reception feels like a huge overkill if you ask Zayn.

They keep walking, not caring that most of the guests have had the same idea, chattering loudly behind Zayn and Harry even if they’re quite far from them still. “Sorry about my Mum,” Harry says, mutters it like he doesn’t really want to say it.

Zayn shakes his head. “No apologies. It’s not how we work, Styles. This doesn’t change anything,” he replies, hoping it sounds sharp enough.

It does, because Harry’s shoulders tense a little. “Figured,” he says bitterly. “Why should it change anything? Why would we want to be normal fucking human beings for once?”

“Lower your voice,” Zayn grits through his teeth.

Harry laughs. “Why? They’ll all just fucking _gloat _if they catch me fighting with _my boyfriend_.”

“Then it’ll defeat the very purpose for which I’ve let myself be sucked into your mess, and I’ll have wasted the whole fucking day. So chill the fuck out, Harry.”

Harry opens his mouth, but then seems to change his mind, and he doesn’t reply. They just keep walking aimlessly in silence, and Zayn circles Harry’s waist with an arm when he feels some people get closer to them.

The people, on the contrary, seem oblivious to how close they are to Zayn and Harry, or they simply don’t care, because he hears them talk, and if he’s not mistaken, it’s Harry’s two evil cousins again, Paul and Mark. “How do you think he landed such a _hot _boyfriend?”

“Dunno. Must be good in the sack. God knows there’s no other reason the lad would deal with all of Harry’s… mess.”

A hum. “Yeah, his and his mother’s. Poor Aunt Anne though, you seen her? She looks so… so…”

“Drunk?” a mocking laugh.

Zayn thinks he’ll have to fucking restrain Harry not to turn and bash his cousins’ faces in, and only then he realizes _he’s _the one who’s angrily turning, and Harry is the one trying to hold _him _back. “Must have something good if I chose to _deal _with him, eh?” he snarls.

The two lads seem to be surprised by such a direct confrontation. But Zayn’s not done speaking, despite Harry trying to forcibly pull him back. “Harry's beautiful. He’s talented. Can learn any fucking piece by heart in three seconds. He’s kind to his mother, he’s kind to everyone. So yeah, this is how he _landed _me.”

The two blokes are abashed, and they don’t even answer. They just stutter something and flee the scene, passing them swiftly by and going for the tables.

Zayn takes a breath, realizing just _what _he said, and when he looks at Harry, Harry is just breathing, one hand still curled around the hem of Zayn’s jacket, his eyes not even blinking.

They look at each other for a moment. Then, Harry pulls Zayn closer until their chests collide. “You don’t really think all those things, do you?” he asks.

Zayn feels like he just ran a mile, like he’s navigating unchartered waters, like he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing anymore. So he leans forward and catches Harry’s lower lip with his teeth, dragging it harshly, until Harry hisses in pain, because _this _he knows. “Of course I do, Styles,” he grins. “They just don’t need to know those are the reasons I hate you.”

Harry chuckles, and it’s mocking, like he doesn’t properly believe Zayn. “Yeah. I hate you too, Malik,” he answers, and Zayn can feel both of them hard against each other.

Zayn scoffs. “You got a boner just out of me biting your lip,” he points out, ignoring the bit where Zayn did the same.

Harry chuckles again. “’S what hating you does to me, I think you got that the night we played Mozart.”

Zayn opens his mouth although he doesn’t even know what he’s gonna retort, but he never manages to speak, because the bride and groom show up by the tables in the grass, followed by everybody. Harry looks for his mother, finds her, and he and Zayn join her at a table. She seems okay, Zayn thinks.

Only when they’re seated with slices of cake in front of them and the toasts have started does Zayn notice there’s a huge, lovely grand piano on the right, with the lid half-closed and a black violin positioned on top, next to a vase of flowers, probably only there for show. Zayn chuckles, because it seems only fitting, and sees Harry do the same.

“Oh!” someone exclaims. “Harry! Why don’t you and your boyfriend play something for Peter and Angelique? We hear you’re quite good!”

Zayn is afraid Harry will have a coronary at the mere thought, and Zayn himself is quite close to that, but when he looks at Harry, he’s just shaking his head and opening his mouth to probably make up an excuse.

And well, Zayn can see it was one of Harry’s evil cousins who spoke, Paul or Mark, he doesn’t know because it’s not like he cares enough to tell them apart, and Zayn never did well with dares, so he stands up and grabs Harry’s hand to make him stand as well. “He’s not quite good,” Zayn says out loud, and then looks at Harry in the eyes, “he’s the best.”

Harry’s green eyes widen, and he’s still mildly shaking his head, but Zayn just knocks their foreheads together, ignoring the cooing of their audience. “Let’s do Mozart’s _Sonata 21_, Styles,” Zayn grins. “I’m sure you remember it.”

“What the fu…”

“You said it. We could be a thousand times better together if we behaved like proper human beings. Can you, Harry? Can you just fucking play with me and show them how fucking _good _we are?” Zayn whispers, conscious that everybody is looking at them, although they can’t hear them.

Harry takes two deep breaths.

And then he nods.

People clap politely as Harry and Zayn make their way to the piano and the violin, and Harry sets the instrument on his shoulder, pinching the chords to see if it’s tuned. Zayn gives him an A major, and Harry makes quick work of the strings, until he’s ready and nods.

Zayn clears his throat. “This is the First Movement of Mozart’s _Sonata no. 21_ for piano and violin,” he announces.

He looks up at Harry. “Keep your tempo, Malik,” Harry whispers.

Zayn winks. “Watch your _crescendos_, Styles.”

They nod at each other, and then they start to play Mozart’s fucking _Sonata no. 21_.

+

When Harry and Zayn played at their conservatory’s gala concert, everybody went crazy over their rendition of Mozart’s sonata. Everybody except themselves.

Because they both knew that they had sucked at it. Nobody noticed, not even their professors, but they themselves did, because Zayn could feel how _off _and _angry _they were, how it didn’t sound like they were playing together but rather _against each other_, and his hands hit the keys just a bit too harshly, and Harry’s bow slid over the strings just a bit too angrily.

People went crazy, and when they were done, they bowed graciously but not perfectly in sync, and took the cheering, while Zayn thought he just wanted to grab Harry Styles and shove him into a wall.

So that was what Zayn did. As soon as the cheering was over, and Harry Styles slipped out of the room, Zayn followed him. And when they reached a scarcely illuminated corridor, Zayn grabbed Harry by the shoulders and shoved him into a wall, hard, taking pleasure in hearing the wind knock out of him. “Get your fucking hands off me, Malik,” Harry grunted.

“You couldn’t even give me _this _night, could you? You always have to not fucking care about anything,” Zayn hissed.

Harry squirmed in his grip. “I care about so many things I don’t have space for you and your strops.”

“Tough luck, because you’ve been a fucking nightmare to work with, and what was that tonight? You didn’t even _try_, Styles, you never do! We _sucked_!”

Harry shrugged. “Nobody noticed.”

“I did,” Zayn retorted, “I did, and you did as well. That’s enough. You’re supposed to be the fucking star of your department, and you didn’t care about tonight, not as much as I did, and you ruined everything.”

Harry didn’t reply, but he smirked in a way that made Zayn’s blood boil. “Maybe if you kept your fucking tempo, we would have sucked less, Malik.”

Zayn attacked Harry after he said that. For a moment, he thought he was gonna punch Harry in the face until he saw blood come out of his nose, and it took him a second to realize that not only Harry was fighting back, but also, it wasn’t _that _sort of fight.

Because their hands were going for each other’s belt, trying to get their trousers open, and then they were stumbling into the first available dark classroom, Harry pushing at Zayn’s chest and Zayn pulling at Harry’s hair, until they tripped over a chair in the darkness and then Zayn was sitting on a table and Harry was kneeling in front of him, his hands opening Zayn’s trousers with an ominous ripping sound, and Zayn didn’t even realize how hard he was, not until Harry was taking him into his mouth without even looking at him.

Zayn couldn’t have that. They could hate-fuck each other, but Harry was going to look at Zayn while they did, because this, Harry on his knees with Zayn’s cock in his mouth, was Zayn _winning_.

Only it wasn’t. Because when Zayn pulled Harry’s hair again and made him look up, Harry looked like he was winning all the same, in the way he was able to have a smug smirk even with his mouth that obscenely full, and in the way he made a small, pained noise and it made Zayn almost come already.

Zayn didn’t ask permission to fuck Harry’s mouth, but he realized he didn’t really have to, because when he started thrusting his hips into that wet heat, Harry just relaxed his throat and took it, daring Zayn to do more with just his eyes.

Zayn did do more. He brought himself to the point of almost coming, and then pushed Harry away from his dick, standing up from the desk only to grab a fistful of Harry’s jacket and push him against the same table, yanking his trousers down while at the same time retrieving a packet of lube and a condom from his wallet.

“Do you want this?” Zayn asked Harry then, with his fingers covered in lube but still not even near Harry’s hole.

Harry nodded, his breath ragged. “Yeah, fuck, hurry the fuck up, you can’t even do _this _with a good tempo, apparently.”

Zayn didn’t have any concerns left when he slipped two fingers at once inside Harry, hard, twisting his wrist and crooking his digits until Harry was whimpering and begging, his big hands gripping the table in front of him so tightly Zayn was afraid it was gonna break.

Then, he showed Harry his fucking tempo, by fucking his fingers in and out of him at a pace that was not hard enough, not fast enough, just enough to _not _satisfy him, until Harry was begging for more, whining and grunting, a litany of _please fuck please fuck _tumbling out of his lips.

Then, and only then, did Zayn roll the condom on and slam into Harry without care, hard enough to make his whole body rattle and arch. Harry lost his grip on the table, and he fell forward, his stomach flat on the desk. Zayn pushed a hand on his back, keeping him pinned there, and roughly bucked his hips, making sure that no comments on how tight and fucking _perfect _Harry felt left his mouth.

But he did. Feel perfect. Zayn had never fucked anyone so responsive, so keen to moan and groan and whimper underneath him, and in that moment, he wished he could see Harry’s face. But he couldn’t, because it had to happen like that, without eye contact, or they’d both come too soon, and that little hate-fuck would lose its purpose. The purpose of showing the other who was winning.

None of them did. They both came, hard and for a long time, the desk sliding with a loud screech over the linoleum on the floor, and for a moment Zayn imagined that everyone in the gala room had heard everything, from their spiteful words to their angry grunts.

No one had heard, it turned out.

Zayn thought the tension between him and Harry Styles would be solved like that, but he was sorely mistaken, because _nothing _was solved, and that little hate-fuck was bound to only be the first of a long, extenuating series.

+

The first time Zayn and Harry played Mozart’s _[Sonata no. 21](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UhnfWzOCMo)_ together, they were both too angry to properly look at each other and _listen _to each other.

Now, as they play that very piece again, together one more time, Zayn finds that he can’t quite stop looking at Harry, and he blesses the fact that he still knows that piece by heart, because he doesn’t have to pay much attention to the keyboard.

There’s just _so much _going on with Harry, when Harry plays the violin. It’s not _his _violin, Zayn knows, because Harry’s violin is a warm, dark mahogany colour, while this one is pitch black. But it doesn’t matter, because it’s still mesmerizing to watch.

Harry’s eyes are impossibly green while he also plays without looking at the strings, and looking at Zayn instead. His curls are bouncing whenever Harry moves his shoulders more to accompany the _staccatos_, and his biceps flex and stretch when he needs to trace bigger arches with the bow. His whole body looks like it’s following the movement of his hands on the instrument, and in that moment, Zayn truly realizes how _good _Harry is.

And the usual anger for Harry not doing all he can with his talent doesn’t come. That anger, which usually accompanies Zayn every time he thinks about how Harry Styles could be one of the best fucking musicians in the country if only he gave a shit about it, stays far away from Zayn, because Zayn is too busy _admiring _Harry.

Everything sounds so _different _from when they last played that sonata together. They’re not playing _against each other_ anymore, but _together_, respecting and following each other’s tempo, calibrating their _crescendos _on each other rather than trying to overcome each other. When it’s the turn of Harry’s solos, Zayn makes sure the piano is only a background track. When it’s about Zayn’s solos, Harry takes care of reducing the violin line to a whisper.

It’s fucking amazing is what it is, and in that moment Zayn feels like they’re not Zayn Malik and Harry Styles, to whom everybody rolls their eyes.

They’re Zayn and Harry, born to play together and complete each other.

It’s stupid, and Zayn doesn’t _want _to think it. But he does anyway, even if he’ll never say it out loud, probably not even to himself.

They get to the end of the first movement of the sonata in a time that feels like a second and a year. There’s another movement to the sonata, but they’ve silently agreed to just do the first, because otherwise the piece would be too long, and they’re both sure nobody in their audience would appreciate them making that fucking reception _longer_. It’s enough.

Everybody claps, and Zayn stands from the piano stool. They both bow, like they’ve done a thousand times by themselves after performing. Even their bow feels better than the first and last they did together, which was uncoordinated and stiff. Now, they easily bend their backs forward at the same time, at the same angle, and together they rise again.

Harry looks at Zayn.

And Zayn surges forward, to kiss him on the mouth, and even if it’s supposed to be for show, Zayn knows that it isn’t.

Again, it’s not a proper kiss, just a press of lips, but it’s there, and Harry takes it, sighs in it, the violin still clutched in his hand and now trapped in between their chests.

People whistle, and that’s their cue to stop being in the spotlight and go back to their seats. Zayn waits for Harry to place the violin back on the grand piano, and then lets him go first, setting a steadying hand on the small of Harry’s back, and feeling how hard he’s shaking even if nobody could ever see it.

When they go back to the table, Anne isn’t there. Harry looks around, a bit at a loss, and Zayn does the same, but before they can do anything, they hear a shriek and the shattering of glass, and Harry jumps out of his skin, standing and running away.

Zayn sees what’s happening. Anne has fallen to the ground in the middle of the small path lined with rose bushes, and she’s struggling to get up. She took a bottle down with her, which now lies broken next to her, the smell of wine wafting all around.

Zayn’s heart breaks a little at the thought that Harry’s mother went away to look for more wine while her son was nervous and playing for their whole extended family and friends, and he immediately rises to his feet and follows Harry. He can feel everybody’s dead silence like it’s something physical.

“Mum? Mum, are you okay? Did you hurt yourself?” Harry’s asking frantically, trying to lower his voice but failing, he’s so scared. Zayn crouches next to him and Anne while Anne heaves a sigh and a laugh, sitting up. Zayn shifts so that he’ll somewhat cover her from their audience’s—because they’re still an audience, still looking like it’s a fucking show—eyes.

Harry is shaking, in anger or fear, or both, Zayn can’t tell. What he can tell is that Anne’s breath smells like wine, and Harry must be dying inside, for the shame of every fucking member of his family looking, for Zayn being there without any real entitlement, for probably just wanting to pop down a couple pills.

Anne shakes her head. “No, I’m good, I’m good,” she slurs, answering Harry’s question about her hurting herself a good minute after he asked it.

Zayn risks everything when he sets a hand on Harry’s shoulder, and prays whatever divinity above that Harry won’t shove him away, adding fuel to the fire already going.

Harry doesn’t, so Zayn dares to speak, in a murmur only meant for him. “We have to take her home, Harry.”

“How the fuck can I do that? What will I tell them? She’s so fucking drunk, Zayn, everybody has already noticed!” he hisses.

Zayn nods, taking a breath. “You don’t tell them anything. Just get her up and to my car. I’ll deal with your fucking family, Styles.”

Harry doesn’t look at Zayn, but he doesn’t protest, and just takes care of helping his mother up from the grass.

Zayn stands, and plasters his best smile to his face, wondering why the fuck he’s even helping Harry Styles. _Because he needs it. He doesn’t need your anger right now. And whatever you two need, the other provides, isn’t it? _“I’m afraid we’ll have to get going right now,” he tells no one and everybody. “We have to take Anne to the ER and make sure she’s really fine.”

Zayn pointedly ignores the series of arched eyebrows his words generate, and he’s about to just turn on his heels and leave, when the bride sighs and walks over to him, hugging him. “Thank you, for coming,” she says in a heavily French accent, whispering it into Zayn’s neck. “Please take care of them. They need it.”

Zayn remembers Harry telling him that Angelique, the bride, was French and nice. It seems like he was right about both, he thinks, as he awkwardly hugs her back for a moment. “Thank you,” he replies, and then he isn’t able to help a threatening grin from escaping together with his next words. “Tell your brothers-in-law that if they fuck with Harry one more time, I’m gonna fuck them up.”

Angelique blinks twice, and then she snorts and covers her mouth with her hand. “I can’t tell them, but please do. They’re… _connards_?” she says, frowning a little and still whispering.

Zayn laughs, because he knows the word. “Cunts, love,” he tells her, and then he goes.

Harry and Anne have disappeared, and Zayn runs along the pathway until he spots them, having almost reached Zayn’s car. Anne doesn’t look like she’s limping for the fall, but she does look like she can’t hold herself upright, and Harry is almost carrying her without her touching the ground. “C’mon, Mum, it’s okay, it’s alright,” he hears Harry whisper gently.

Zayn doesn’t think it’s alright, but he keeps that for himself as he joins them. “Did she drive here?” he only asks. “We gotta make sure to come back and pick up her car later if she did.”

Harry shakes his head. “No, no, she came with Aunt Maggie. They won’t miss her I’m sure,” he replies grimly.

Zayn nods and unlocks his car, helping Harry until Anne is safely nestled in the backseat, her back against one of the doors and her feet bare after Harry removes her shoes and places them on the floor of the car. “I’m fine,” Anne slurs, extending a hand from inside the car like she wants to touch Harry, who is standing outside, “My baby, always taking care of me.”

Harry’s lips shake. He leans into the door and delicately strokes Anne’s thigh. “We’re going home, Mum,” he just says, and then gets out again, closing the door and sitting in the passenger seat without another word.

Zayn doesn’t force him to talk, and silence reigns in the car for about ten minutes, before Anne speaks again. “I heard you play,” she tells Harry.

Harry scoffs, but only lightly. “No, you didn’t. But cheers, Mum.”

Anne hums. “You still going to the conservatory?”

Harry sighs. “Yeah, Mum. I am,” he murmurs, and then for Zayn, although he doesn’t look at him, “Sorry about this.”

Zayn shakes his head. “It’s okay. Haz? Does this… like, did she just get drunk today? Or, um, or does this happen often?”

He thinks maybe Harry won’t even reply and will shout at Zayn. But Harry just scoffs. “Drunk? This is just fucking _tipsy_ for her. It gets much worse. It’s been like this for a year. Since Robin died. My sister moved to the States because having to deal with this was fucking her up. I still love her, but now I’m alone. I try to contain the damage when I can, which admittedly doesn’t work most of the time.”

Zayn looks at Harry, at his bowed head and at the curls covering his face while he twists his own fingers, and he realizes a series of things, in that moment.

He realizes that his heart is aching for Harry Styles, for the bloke who is supposed to be his enemy, his hate-fuck, his anger outlet.

He realizes Harry is so fucked up he needs anxiety pills.

He realizes Harry deals with this on a daily basis, and _that _is the reason Harry’s failing his exams. Zayn has spent the last year assuming that Harry was too self-confident to actually _study_, and that he didn’t bother showing up at exams because he thought he was just too damn good to deal with academia.

But the truth is that Harry has an alcoholic mother, and Zayn is sure that Harry has been in the situation where he had to choose between going to class or to an exam and taking care of his mother, more than once, and he chose his mother, almost fucking up his conservatory degree for good.

Zayn realizes he’s been hating Harry Styles without knowing _shit _about him.

“I’m… I’m sorry,” Zayn utters, and it feels wrong and shaky, like he’s about to cry.

Harry scoffs again. “Don’t, Malik. You’ve been the only fucking person who never gave a fuck about my issues, never gave a fuck about shouting at me, and always gave me what I needed even if I just needed to _hurt_. If you stop doing that, I have _nothing_ else.”

Zayn doesn’t reply, but Harry’s words echo in his brain for a long time after that.

“I miss him so much,” Anne murmurs when they’re almost at her and Harry’s place. Because Harry never even moved out of his mother’s place, or maybe moved back in after his stepfather died, and it’s not out of laziness, it’s because Anne _needed _him. Zayn has made fun of Harry for still living with his Mum a couple of times, and he feels like a dick for it now.

Harry sighs. “I know, Mum. I miss him a lot too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you're thinking :)
> 
> I am also on Tumblr as wont-you-stay-till-the-am.tumblr.com, come hit me up if you wanna talk.


	6. Shift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But Zayn _can’t_ leave Harry just yet, not if he doesn’t even know if he _wants_ to leave him right now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **WARNING:** Please, please read the tags and the following disclaimers carefully. 
> 
> This story deals with: **Drug abuse, alcohol abuse, addiction and alcoholism, anger issues**. 
> 
> As for what concerns the sex, it will mostly be "normal" angry/rough sex, but there will a couple scenes where it will be quite violent. It will always be consensual, there is absolutely no dealing with rape and the like in this fic, but it will be intense.
> 
> If any of these themes bother you, or if you think they might hurt your sensitivity, please DO NOT read this story.

They get to Harry and Anne’s place, and when Zayn turns off the engine, Harry clears his throat. “Thanks. I can manage now,” he says, like he wants Zayn to go.

But Zayn _can’t _leave Harry just yet, not if he doesn’t even know if he _wants _to leave him right now. So he produces his best grin, and shakes his head. “Not a chance, Styles. Now that I’m here, I wanna see the shithole you live in.”

Harry rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t protest as he gets out of the car and gently pulls his mother out as well. She’s half asleep, and Harry just picks her up bridal-style and carries her up the front steps.

Zayn doesn’t even wait for Harry to say it, and just rummages through Harry’s pockets until he finds the keys, right next to what feels like his bottle of pills. He leaves the bottle where it is, and only takes the keys out. He slides the biggest one in the lock, turning it and unlocking the door, keeping it open so that Harry can get inside with Anne.

He doesn’t look around as he helps Harry up the stairs inside the house, until they reach what is probably Anne’s bedroom. Harry sighs and carefully places his mother on the bed, and Zayn leaves the room when he sees Harry’s taking care of getting her out of that dress.

He should leave, but instead he just stops outside the room, waiting in the dark corridor.

Anne protests something Zayn doesn’t catch, and he hears Harry sigh. “C’mon, Mum, you can’t sleep in your underwear, you’ll catch a cold.”

“Leave me alone.”

“I can’t,” Harry says, sniffling, “I can’t.”

“Yes you can. Your sister did.”

“Gemma was getting _sick _because of this, and you know,” Harry replies stubbornly, like he doesn’t know it’s not a good idea to argue with someone so drunk.

Anne chuckles. “You got sick as well, but you stayed. Do you think I don’t notice? All the pills you take? What is it? Is it drugs? I heard you talking to Niall about failing your exams at the music college. Is it because you’re on drugs? After all me and Robin did to help you go there?”

“Mum, please,” Harry begs, and he’s crying now, Zayn can clearly hear it.

It breaks his heart, the way Harry’s mother is talking to him. Zayn knows she loves him, but alcohol is a bitch, it strips you of all your supposed feelings, and everything that’s left is frustration and hatred, even towards your own son. Zayn imagines Harry dealing with everything by himself, and suddenly it only makes sense he needs the anxiety medication. It was the least that could happen to him.

“Does your boy know you’re on drugs?” Anne asks.

Harry sighs. “I’m not on drugs, Mum. And he knows. He’s been the only person who has made the last year bearable, if I’m honest.”

Zayn’s breath is cut clean off, and again, he thinks he should leave, but he can’t move.

“Why?” Harry’s mother asks.

“Because he doesn’t care about me enough to make me feel guilty about it.”

But it’s not true, is it? Because Zayn can pretend he doesn’t care about Harry all he wants, and yet, for a whole year, he’s thought about Harry every single day, always finding a way to have a row because it meant they would have sex, they would hurt each other and touch each other where it counts, without any pretence, without masks and without commitment.

And yet, even without the commitment, Zayn hasn’t fucked anybody else since he first fucked Harry, and Harry is the same. Because they’re the same, Zayn and Harry, in everything that really counts.

Anne doesn’t speak anymore, probably fallen asleep already, and before Zayn can move, Harry is out of the door, frantically breathing and retrieving his pills, shaking two of them in his open palm and gulping them down without any water, like he’ll die if he doesn’t get them in his system fast enough.

Zayn is tempted to swat the fucking bottle away from his hand, but he balls his fists and he doesn’t, because he knows Harry needs the meds, otherwise he wouldn’t have a doctor prescribing them for him, would he?

Harry calms down a couple minutes later, and only then does he realize Zayn’s standing in the corridor right next to him. He jolts. “Fuck. I thought you left,” he says coldly.

“I didn’t.”

“I think you should. Thanks for tonight. But I need to be alone right now.”

“No,” Zayn replies, taking a step closer to Harry.

Harry tilts his chin. “I said you should get the fuck away, Malik.”

“No, Styles, I won’t,” Zayn says stubbornly, coming right into Harry’s personal space, their chests pressed together.

Harry’s hands wraps around the lapels of Zayn’s jacket, and Zayn waits for Harry to shove at him, to bring everything back to something that they both _know_, but Harry just takes a ragged breath, and then he bursts into tears, his forehead landing on Zayn’s collarbone as sob after sob shakes his whole body.

Zayn gulps down, feeling his own tears come out, and then he slowly hugs Harry close, making sure to engulf him in his arms as much as he can.

Harry shakes when he speaks next. “What she said,” he almost chokes, “about my sister abandoning her. It’s not true. Gemma was really getting ill because of this. She had to go away. I don’t blame her. I love her.”

Zayn nods, and shushes Harry a bit. “I know, I know. You don’t need to justify your life to me.”

“This… this is not what we _do_,” Harry hiccups.

Zayn sighs. “What do we do, Harry?”

Harry raises his eyes to Zayn’s. “We fight. We hurt each other.”

“Because we need it,” Zayn nods. “We give each other what we need. So what do you need now, Harry?”

Harry blinks the rest of his tears away, and then straightens his back, walking backwards and pulling Zayn with him. “I need it to hurt,” he says on Zayn’s lips, but without kissing him, “I need it to hurt so that when we both come I know that I’m good for _something_.”

Zayn nods, his body shaking when Harry pulls him inside his own room and shoves him against the door to close it. Zayn winces, not for the pain, but for the noise.

Harry shakes his head. “She’s not gonna hear anything until tomorrow morning. She’s out cold.”

Zayn nods, without replying, and he surges forward to bite on Harry’s lower lip and drag it as hard as he can, feeling it pulse and throb in his mouth.

Harry’s eyelids flutter, and when Zayn lets go of his abused lip, he doesn’t waste any more time and latches his mouth on Zayn’s neck, sucking harshly until a bruise is surely forming, because it fucking hurts.

Zayn is angry again, but this time, he’s not angry at Harry. He’s angry _for _Harry, for what he’s been dealing with, for his alcoholic mother, for the pills, for him having no choice but to fuck up his career. “You want to be good for something?” he asks Harry, knowing it sounds cold and angry.

Harry nods. “Yes. Yes. It’s the only thing I fucking want, and you’re the only one who can give it to me.”

“Then take it, Harry,” Zayn replies, shoving at Harry until he’s stumbling backwards, to the bed. Zayn keeps shoving. “You’re good at playing your violin,” he says pushing Harry on the bed. Harry lands on his back, bouncing, and doesn’t move when Zayn straddles him and goes for the buttons of his shirt. “You’re good at taking care of your mother,” he tells Harry as he rips the shirt open. “You’re good at hiding the fact that you’re a fucking mess,” he pulls at the jacket and the shirt until Harry rises a little and lets Zayn slide them off his body and throw them to the ground. “You are a mess, Styles, and it only makes me want to fuck you up more, because I want you to be a mess because of _me_, not anybody else.”

Harry shivers, and he doesn’t move. He just looks up at Zayn, and Zayn knows that in that moment, he could do anything to Harry, even carve his heart out of his chest, and Harry would ask him to never stop.

“Fight back, Styles,” Zayn says, almost shouts, and his hand slips out of his control, slapping Harry on the cheek. It’s not a particularly strong slap, but it’s there, and Zayn feels his stomach drop, because he never hits Harry like this, not unless Harry asks for it.

Harry hasn’t asked for it, but Zayn clearly feels him grow harder and harder underneath him. “You like this?” he asks, a bit at a loss.

Harry nods. “Only if it’s you. The only times you manage to make me come without even touching me, it’s when you hurt me. I’ve got a bit of a pain kink, I thought you noticed by now,” he says, his voice hoarse.

Zayn doesn’t slap him again, of course. But he lowers himself on Harry’s face. “Good,” he says. “Then fight back. I want _my _Harry Styles. The one who makes me fucking angry. I’ve got a bit of a kink for _him_,” he adds.

Harry is now rock-hard in his trousers, and Zayn grinds on his erection, hard, until Harry whimpers and arches and growls. A moment later, Harry is grunting something and his hand goes for Zayn’s hair, pulling him down so that he’s the one lying down, hissing in pain and getting hard from it. “We’re really fucked up, ain’t we, Zayn?” Harry asks, purrs on Zayn’s neck, and Zayn almost has a stroke about Harry calling him by his first name.

He manages not to come on the spot, and then nods, grabbing a fistful of Harry’s hair.

He knows Harry is waiting for Zayn to pull at it. They’ve done this a thousand times, the pulling pigtails, metaphorically and physically.

Now, Zayn doesn’t want to. So instead, he uses his grip to pull Harry’s face to his own, and kisses Harry.

Harry gasps into Zayn’s mouth, because now it’s a _real _kiss, not just a press of lips and not just a biting to draw blood. Harry groans in their kiss, opening his mouth until their tongues are entwining, and Zayn really doesn’t know why they waited a whole year to do that, because it’s fucking intoxicating. Harry has a taste Zayn has never tasted, and Zayn’s tongue has been on every fucking inch of Harry’s body. Just not his mouth. He tastes like mints and cake and a little bit of champagne, but there’s something else, something more _Harry_, and Zayn feels himself grow impossibly harder.

Harry notices and smirks, moving his tongue faster against Zayn’s, and Zayn tightens his grip on his hair in retaliation, albeit not interrupting the kiss.

When he’s mildly satisfied with exploring Harry’s mouth, Zayn rolls his hips and pushes Harry away, only to straddle him again after they both get completely naked. Zayn thinks they’ve never been this hard.

He also realizes they’ve never fucked on a bed. Hell, they’ve never even fucked lying down and looking at each other, if not for the few times when one was riding the other, and even then, they never looked at each other for long.

Now, Zayn wants to look his fill, because Harry looks fucked up and wrecked and obscene, and it’s Zayn’s doing, _mine to ruin_, he thinks with a grin, _I made him like this, he’s so filthy because it’s me and not anybody else._

Harry must understand, because he nods, stretching a hand out like he thinks Zayn’s too far. “You,” he just says, and that’s confirmation enough.

“Lube and condom,” Zayn replies, not granting Harry’s wish of being closer just yet.

Harry almost sends Zayn flying in his haste of reaching for his bedside, and Zayn would laugh if he wasn’t so painfully hard. Once the things they need have been retrieved, Zayn slides down Harry’s body, until his mouth is over his dick. “Are you gonna fight back, Styles?” he asks. “Are you angry enough to want this?”

Harry nods, his hands grasping chunks of Zayn’s hair. “Yeah. Fuck. Open your mouth and I’ll show you, Malik.”

Zayn nods, and does as Harry asks. As soon as he opens his mouth, Harry feeds his dick into it, thrusting his hips and fucking up into Zayn’s mouth. Zayn gags, but he doesn’t pull away, lets Harry do what he wants because he needs it, and they give each other what they need.

“I hate you,” Harry mutters, looking down at Zayn, “I hate you.”

Zayn smirks, and he can’t reply, but he doesn’t need to.

Harry almost comes in Zayn’s mouth, and when Zayn realizes, he pulls away with the loudest _pop _he can manage, making Harry shout a curse. Then he uses the lube to coat his fingers and slide them inside Harry, two at once as usual, because Harry can take it, and he loves the pain, same as Zayn.

Harry splayed on the bed naked with his legs open for Zayn to do whatever he pleases is a filthy sight, but Zayn wishes he could have seen it sooner. His hair is a mess on the pillows, his face is red and his lips are parted, and one hand is still into Zayn’s hair, still pulling, but it looks more like it’s because Harry needs grounding rather than because he actually wants to hurt Zayn.

Zayn makes quick work of prepping Harry, and then rolls the condom on. “Do you want this?” he asks Harry, as he always does.

Harry opens his eyes and arches an eyebrow. “Do I fucking look like I don’t want this, Malik?” he snarls.

Zayn grins. “I hate you, Styles,” he only says as he pushes inside Harry, hard, clutching at the back of Harry’s thighs and digging his nails in his skin.

Harry shouts, his neck and back arching, and Zayn thinks this is another thing he’s never seen. Harry Styles completely naked, on his back, taking him and loving it. “Yes,” Harry pants, “Yes. Hate me. I need you to hate me.”

“And I need you to hate me,” Zayn answers.

None of them means it, but they don’t say it out loud, because that’s not how they work.

So Zayn keeps telling Harry how much he hates him, and Harry keeps nodding and asking for more, until there’s bruises on his legs and his neck from Zayn’s fingers and lips, until Zayn’s scalp is sore with how much Harry has pulled at his hair, until Harry’s clenching so tightly around Zayn’s dick that it’s starting to hurt or to feel too unbearably good, Zayn’s not sure.

“I’m gonna come,” Harry mutters, pants, his chest glistening with sweat.

Zayn remembers what Harry said, about having a pain kink. So he doesn’t stop pounding into him, but he places is fingers on one of Harry’s collarbones, and then drives them down to his hip, leaving four red marks in their wake.

Harry whimpers, and comes untouched, and the sight and the tightness makes Zayn come hard as well, his body stuttering where it’s joined to Harry’s, and Harry’s back arching more and more with the momentum.

None of them speaks for a while after that. Zayn pulls out and gets rid of the condom, and then gets a towel from the bathroom he finds himself, wets it with warm water, and brings it back to Harry’s room.

It’s weird, the aftercare. They never did it for each other, always buttoning themselves up again and leaving as fast as possible. Now, Zayn doesn’t feel like leaving. He feels like wiping away the strings of come from Harry’s stomach, and Harry lets him, his eyes half lidded and his breath slowly recovering.

When even that is done, Zayn is still debating what to do, and coming to terms with the fact that he doesn’t want to leave Harry.

His stomach drops a little when Harry closes his eyes before turning on his side, so that he’s giving his back to Zayn. But then, “Can you stay?” is all Harry asks, his face hidden and his voice small.

Zayn nods even if Harry can’t see him. “Yeah. Yeah, okay, I’ll stay.”

Harry nods, his hair getting more tangled when he rubs his head against the pillow. “I like to be little spoon,” he informs Zayn.

Zayn chuckles, and lays down next to Harry, and it’s surreal to wrap his arm around Harry’s stomach and haul him closer until Harry’s back is glued to his chest, but he does. “Figured that out from how much you like to show me your back when we fuck, Styles,” he murmurs into Harry’s ear.

“I only have eggs for breakfast,” Harry says after a moment. “I know you hate them, you always slip yours into Louis Tomlinson’s plate when you eat at the cafeteria. But if you hate me and fuck me anyway, you’re gonna hate my eggs and eat them anyway.”

“Shut the fuck up, Harry,” Zayn retorts rolling his eyes, and “I’ll eat your fucking eggs,” he adds after a moment.

Harry stays silent for about thirty seconds before speaking again, and Zayn almost punches him in the face. “When we went back from the piano after we played, did you grab my arse so that Paul and Mark would see?”

Zayn snorts, because of course he did. “Yes, Styles. Now I swear to God, let me sleep or I’m gonna rip your face off.”

“I don’t think that can be part of our kink, no.”

“Yeah, no. So shut the fuck up.”

Harry chuckles. “I hate you, Malik.”

“Yeah. I hate you too, Styles.”

+

Something shifts between them, after that.

When Zayn wakes up tangled in the sheets and in Harry the next morning, he doesn’t think that he can’t stand being so close to Harry if they’re not hate-fucking or fighting. He just thinks that Harry looks like he managed to sleep okay, and Zayn counts it as a small victory.

When Harry also wakes up, and blinks and frowns at Zayn like it takes him a moment to place together what happened the night before, he doesn’t look horrified or angry. He just sighs into Zayn’s neck, and murmurs something about wanting to sleep some more. Zayn lets him, and even though he doesn’t feel sleepy anymore, he stays in bed with him, playing with his messed up hair and delicately disentangling its knots, listening to Harry’s rhythmic sleeping breaths.

When he does fall asleep again anyway, Zayn doesn’t sleep for long, because he’s awoken by Harry’s lips around his cock, while Harry gives him a silent, slow morning blowjob. They never did _slow_, they’re the opposite of slow, but Zayn likes it, and does his best not to come too soon because of Harry’s wicked tongue and mouth and lube-covered fingers sliding past his rim to brush at his prostate when he decides it’s time for Zayn to come.

When Harry straddles him and kisses him, Zayn tastes himself on his tongue, and the kiss is also slow. Slow is also the way Zayn wraps his hand around Harry’s dick and repays the blowjob with a handjob, making sure Harry pants and squirms before he lets him come on Zayn’s stomach.

They don’t pull and push at each other, they’re not angry, they don’t tell each other “I hate you”.

Something shifts between them, after that.

Harry’s mother is still asleep despite it being almost noon, but Harry tells Zayn she’s gonna be out for another couple hours at least, and that if she sleeps, she can’t drink, so it’s a win-win, and Harry will wake her up in a while to convince her to eat some lunch. Zayn doesn’t think it’s that much of a victory, but he doesn’t want to shatter the delicately good mood Harry has awoken in, because the day before was fucking hard on him.

Harry makes his eggs, and Zayn eats them. He doesn’t necessarily hate them. Harry pairs them with bacon and sausages, though, which is nice. _I’m having brunch with Harry Styles_, a small part of his brain supplies, and even though it should feel wrong and horrifying and weird, it just feels nice.

They play house for a couple hours, and they don’t talk about what they’re doing, what they are, what they’re gonna do. That’s not how they work. Whatever they need, the other provides. And right now, it looks like they both need to be in each other’s space without pulling pigtails and screaming, to just _be _there with each other in their underwear and in silence.

So when Harry brings a huge plate of breakfast/lunch to the armchair where Zayn has taken residence, and sits in Zayn’s lap with it, with his arm and side pressed against Zayn’s chest and his cheek rested on Zayn’s collarbone, Zayn lets him, and it doesn’t feel weird in the slightest.

They’ll think about what they’re doing, they’ll scream and fight and hate, but another time, maybe. Now, they eat.

At some point, Harry stands up and goes upstairs with another plate for Anne. Zayn stays in the armchair, but he hears her protest and scream at Harry to leave her alone, hears Harry practically beg her to eat, hears her shout that he’s a pain in the arse and that she’d rather that Harry had died and not Robin. Zayn doesn’t even realize he stands up at that, and he knows it’s the alcohol talking, but he can’t stand Anne, Harry’s _mother_, talking to him like that.

He hears the rattling of Harry’s pills in their bottle, and then Harry shows up again, eyes red-rimmed and cheeks wet, but he’s not shaking and he looks calm. _It’s the pills, he’s not really calm_, Zayn thinks a bit desperately. He wonders how many pills Harry takes on a daily basis. He wonders if it’s too much, if he’s starting to overdo it without noticing, just like Perrie did.

But he doesn’t ask, because he doesn’t know what they’re doing, and he doesn’t want to add to Harry’s stress. Those times have come to an end the day before when Zayn has realized just how much stress Harry’s already in. They’re supposed to be each other’s outlet for that, so that’s what Zayn will be, in whatever form Harry will need, whether be it an angry fuck against a wall, or eating brunch in their underwear in silence.

Harry doesn’t speak. He just looks at Zayn like he’s ashamed Zayn heard what Anne said, and he sniffles a little from the top of the stairs.

Zayn smiles, and gestures for him to come down. He even throws in a snapping of his fingers and points at the floor where he’s standing, because he knows Harry likes it when he bosses him around. Zayn likes it just the same when it’s Harry bossing _him _around, so.

Harry chuckles, and goes down the stairs. When he reaches Zayn, Zayn settles a hand on his lower back and guides him to the armchair in the living room again, and again they sit, Harry in Zayn’s lap, this time properly straddling him, his legs wrapped around Zayn’s hips and his face in the crook of Zayn’s neck. It’s not sexual, though, not really, even if they’re both with a semi already, but that’s just what happens whenever they touch, so they don’t do anything about it.

“How many exams do you still have to do?” Zayn asks Harry after a while.

Harry takes a breath. “Violin Level 5, 6, 7, 8, History of Music, and Harmony 4,” he replies, “You? You’re all on time, right?”

Zayn nods. “Yeah. Piano Level 7, 8, History of Music and Harmony 4,” he says with a chuckle, “Look at you, Styles Almighty. You’re a mess and you’re behind, and yet you still only have two more exams to do compared to me.”

Harry chuckles too. “What you gonna do. I’m just _that _good.”

Zayn pulls at one of his loose curls, hard and with intention, and Harry squeals a little, but he doesn’t move. Zayn feels him fatten up a little more, and rolls his eyes. “I didn’t know your pain kink was _this _heavy.”

“Only if it’s you. For the rest, nobody’s even allowed to _touch _my hair.”

“Good,” Zayn replies. “Wanna study together for History and Harmony 4?”

He didn’t plan on saying that, but when it leaves his mouth, he realizes that it’s exactly what he wants to do. He wants to make sure Harry catches up with the exams he lost because of his mother, and wants to make sure he won’t throw his career out the window.

Harry raises his face from Zayn’s neck, and blinks. “Study together?” he asks, stuttering a little.

Zayn grins. “If you can avoid making me want to rip your face off, that is.”

“If you can avoid making _me _want to rip _your _face off, more like,” he scoffs, but then he adds “Okay then. What are we gonna tell our friends? They’ll have a fucking stroke.”

Zayn laughs. “I think Louis assumed we shagged each other after the wedding when he saw that I haven’t texted him once since we left yesterday.”

Harry hums. “Yeah, Niall and Liam too,” he muses. “Or maybe they’re thinking we killed each other. If only they knew how long we’ve been shagging.”

“Why didn’t you tell them?”

Harry hums. “Why didn’t you tell Louis?” he asks back, driving his fingers through Zayn’s hair, not grabbing at it, but carding his hands along Zayn’s scalp.

Zayn’s eyes flutter, and when Harry grins and pulls a little, he also starts to fatten up more, because he can make fun of Harry all he wants, but he also has a fucking pain kink when it’s Harry Styles, apparently. “You’re my, ah, little secret,” Zayn articulates, almost failing when Harry slowly grinds his hips down.

Harry hums, nosing at Zayn’s jaw. “Same goes for me,” he declares.

Zayn starts to pant when Harry’s grinding brings him to full hardness. “When’s your Level 5?” he asks Harry.

“Two weeks. I don’t know if I’ll manage to be ready. It’s Bach.”

Zayn grabs his hair, and pulls, to hurt him and to bring their faces closer. “You will be ready,” he says. “You can play your fucking pieces at me. Show me how good Styles Almighty is. I’ll make sure to fuck the hubris out of you when you’re done getting your compliments.”

Harry nods, a rivet of sweat running down his temple when he keeps circling his hips. One of his big hands slides between their bodies, pulling their waistbands down so that their hard dicks are out and he can wrap his fingers around both. “When’s your Level 7?” he asks Zayn.

Zayn chuckles. “Five weeks. I’m ready for it already.”

Harry rolls his eyes. “Figured. Maybe I’ll be there anyway. Watch Malik Almighty rubbing his talent in everybody’s face. And then I’ll fuck the hubris out of you.”

“Can’t wait,” Zayn grins, and pulls at Harry’s hair again, but just a little.

None of them says “I hate you”.

Something shifts between them, after that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you're thinking :)
> 
> I am also on Tumblr as wont-you-stay-till-the-am.tumblr.com, come hit me up if you wanna talk.


	7. Chopin - Nocturne op. 32 no. 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry narrows his eyes. “I know what you’re doing, Malik.”  
Zayn grins. “Telling you the truth?”  
“You’re riling me up,” Harry grunts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **WARNING:** Please, please read the tags and the following disclaimers carefully. 
> 
> This story deals with: **Drug abuse, alcohol abuse, addiction and alcoholism, anger issues**. 
> 
> As for what concerns the sex, it will mostly be "normal" angry/rough sex, but there will a couple scenes where it will be quite violent. It will always be consensual, there is absolutely no dealing with rape and the like in this fic, but it will be intense.
> 
> If any of these themes bother you, or if you think they might hurt your sensitivity, please DO NOT read this story.
> 
> Then, a little bit of advice. This fic will mention some classical music pieces, and I provide links to them in the text because they're important, to me and to the fic. If you want and have time, I suggest you listen to them when they show up in the story, in particular the ones that will also appear as chapter titles. It'll make the scenes have more meaning and sense, and you'll know how I imagined them in my mind when I wrote them. Especially the two mentioned piano-violin duets.

“Nah, babe, I honestly think your problems are just in the _Sarabande_, the rest sounds fine to me.”

Harry groans and shoves at Zayn’s shoulder, albeit without intent. “It’s Bach’s _Violin Partita no. 2_, what do you even know about it?”

Zayn rolls his eyes. He’s sitting in an armchair in Piano Room 1, his History of Music book open in his lap, while Harry revises for his Level 5 coming up the next day. He found out he doesn’t mind the violin screeching in his ears while he studies, but that might just be because Harry’s violin hardly _screeches_, it _sounds annoyingly perfect_, more like.

“We’ve all dealt with Bach, Styles,” Zayn replies. “Whether be it strings or keyboards, there is literally _no one _who won’t understand what Bach should or should not sound like. You’re _fine_.”

Harry takes a breath and drives his fingers through his hair. “I don’t think I am. Maybe if I just postpone it a little and practice more. There’s another exam date in a month, and…”

Zayn closes his book, feeling the flares of the old anger boil a little in his stomach. He raises his eyes to look coldly at Harry. “Yeah, so you’ll be able to fail for another month.”

Harry’s lips quiver. “That’s not fair, Zayn. I’m doing everything I can. It’s not my fault that…” he doesn’t finish the sentence, just wiggles his fingers in the air.

Zayn stands up, backing Harry up until he hits the piano. “That what? That you’re too sucked up in your own mess? That you don’t wanna try _more_? That I’ll always be better than you because I don’t cry over my spilled milk?”

Harry narrows his eyes. “I know what you’re doing, Malik.”

Zayn grins. “Telling you the truth?”

“You’re riling me up, you arsehole,” Harry grunts, slapping his palm on Zayn’s chest.

Zayn traps Harry’s wrist with his hand. “Is it working?”

Harry stares at Zayn for a moment, and then grabs Zayn’s other hand with his own, guiding it down until Zayn’s palm is on his dick. He’s already hard. “Yeah, I guess it is.”

Zayn grins again, and leans over Harry, more gently, kissing him for a moment. Harry sighs and goes willingly, and just when his hand is about to go for Zayn’s belt, Zayn pulls away, backing off until he’s plopping down on the armchair and resuming his study. “I’ll fuck you after your exam tomorrow. If you do great. If _I _think you did great.”

Harry grunts something about it being unfair, but he embraces his violin again.

Zayn sighs. “Life’s not fair, Styles. Get over it.”

“I don’t know what I just saw but it feels like the start of a low-qual porno the whole college would like to watch.”

“Yeah. Was quite cringe-y if I’m honest.”

“What the fuck are they even doing?”

Harry and Zayn turn to the door from where the three voices came, and sure enough, Louis, Liam and Niall are there on the threshold, blinking and gaping like they can’t believe what they’re seeing.

Harry arches an eyebrow. “What? We’re studying. I have an exam tomorrow.”

Niall nods. “We know, that’s why we came to see if you were dead, Hazza.”

Louis sighs. “And I saw them looking for you and I thought the best bet was trying to follow the smell of sexual tension coming from our favourite piano room. Sexual tension which is gonna be solved _tomorrow_, if we heard correctly?”

Zayn looks at Harry. Harry is badly concealing a grin, and he just nods, almost imperceptibly, so Zayn sighs heavily, pretending to still be engrossed in his book when he speaks next. “We’ve been fucking for a year now, and it didn’t solve any tension, so I think it’s fair to say it’s never gonna be solved, alas.”

Harry dares a glance to his friends, and Zayn does too, but they aren’t having a coronary or shouting. They’re just grinning, and a moment later Louis whoops and shoves his open palm towards Liam and Niall, who both mutter and hand him some bills. “Cheers lads, next time, trust my sixth sense,” he says.

Harry gapes. “I didn’t even know you _knew each other_!”

Zayn chuckles, eyes still on his book. “Apparently, not only did they know each other and never mentioned it, but they were also betting on if we were already fucking or not.”

Louis grins. “Might want to tell dear Hazza here that if he goes about with his shirts open to his navel, it’s not safe to casually disappear with you and then show up again with scratches all over his pecs.”

Harry squeals a little, pointedly avoiding anyone’s gaze, and then focuses on his violin again. “I have to study,” he declares.

Zayn nods, and looks at their three—apparently _mutual_—friends with a shit-eating grin. “Styles Almighty has to study,” he repeats.

They roll their eyes and flip both of them off before leaving them alone at last.

+

Zayn shows up in the violin examination room way before the exam time, because he wants to avoid whispers and murmurs when people see him there. There’s not that many people yet, and the few who are already there seem to be too preoccupied with their exam to pay him any mind.

Zayn sees that the seats are not arranged in two groups for audience and candidates, so he just takes a seat in one of the last rows, but at the furthest end of it, so that he’ll be able to see anyway. He’s come there to _look_, after all.

The room starts to fill, and there’s no sign of Harry. Zayn is about to have a fucking stroke and send him a threatening text, but right that moment Harry arrives, and he’s not late, because the professor is still not there.

Zayn rolls his eyes when he sees people whisper excitedly upon Harry’s arrival like he’s Lady fucking GaGa or something, but Harry ignores all of them and spots Zayn immediately, a smug smirk in place on his lips as he sighs and sits down next to him, looking ahead.

The students finally notice Zayn, realize who he is, and the whispers increase.

“We’re quite the legend, ain’t we?” Harry murmurs with a smirk.

Zayn scoffs. “Maybe they’re just shocked that you showed up on time for a fucking exam, Styles.”

“Maybe they’re shocked that Malik Almighty is here to listen to me.”

“Maybe I’m not here to listen to you. Maybe I just enjoy the strings. Maybe I don’t really care about listening to you.”

“That’s not what you told me last night,” Harry muses, his voice louder.

Zayn gasps, kicking Harry in the ankle and looking around. “’S not even true!” he hisses. “Because you were too _scared _about your exam and we didn’t fuck.”

“I believe it was you who decided we would fuck _after _the exam,” Harry grins.

“I swear to God, Styles, shut the fuck up or you can kiss my dick goodbye.”

Harry gapes and bats his eyelashes. “Now?” he asks innocently.

Zayn rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t reply anymore, because he sees that while Harry’s eyes and mouth are grinning, his hands are shaking, and he’s twisting his fingers obsessively.

Zayn sighs. “You nervous?”

Harry nods. “Yeah. I need a pill. But I never take ‘em before playing. They… slow my hands down.”

“I’d rather you not take them at all,” Zayn mutters, although he knows he doesn’t have a right to say that.

“I need them,” Harry replies quickly, his eyes on the violin case he has perched on his knees, “I need them.”

“Okay. Okay. Calm down, yeah?” Zayn sighs, deciding to let it go. It feels too much like a déjà-vu, but Zayn is there to make sure Harry does fine in his exams and catches up. So he focuses on that.

“When I’m nervous,” he tells Harry in a whisper, “I pretend everybody watching me is a Minion. So that their opinion doesn’t count much, because they’re yellow and small and not real.”

Harry stays quiet for a moment, and then snorts. “That’s shit advice, Malik.”

Zayn smirks, and then leans so that his lips brush the shell of Harry’s ear. “Then how about this. If you’re nervous, think about how hard I could make you come if I tied you up.”

Harry’s whole body jolts, and his cheeks go a lovely red as he quickly slides his violin case further up his legs to cover his crotch. “That was a low blow.”

Zayn chuckles and pats him on his knee. “Only the best for you, Styles.”

They don’t have time to speak anymore, because the professor—Cowell, Harry says, who is apparently also the Head of the Strings Department in the conservatory—shows up, and the exams start.

Zayn pays attention to everyone, even if it’s long and extenuating. Bach’s _Violin Partita no. 2 _is a half-an-hour-long piece. And maybe Zayn’s a tiny little biased, and he doesn’t know much about strings, but no one sounds just as good as Harry.

“Harry Styles?” Professor Cowell calls out at last.

Harry takes a deep breath, and rises to his feet, taking his violin and bow out of the case, and almost making the case fall from the chair when he lets it go. Zayn surges forward to catch it, and Harry lets out a shaky breath.

And then, as soon as he starts walking towards the front of the classroom and the professor, he looks like he doesn’t have a care in the fucking world, sauntering forward like his dick is guiding him, the neck of his violin in one hand and the bow in the other, which Harry taps a little against his own shoulder as he walks.

Zayn gapes. _It’s all an act. He’s about to pass out for how nervous he is. But he just looks like he’s Harry Styles._

Professor Cowell smiles. “Glad to see you could make it, Mr. Styles,” he says, but not unkindly.

Harry shrugs. “Yeah. Hello,” he just replies. “Can I start?”

Cowell nods. “In your own time.”

Harry fucking _winks _at the professor. “’S always my own time, innit,” he comments, which earns him an eyeroll from the teacher, and if Harry behaved like that with any of the piano professors, he would have already failed the exam.

But then again, he’s Harry Styles, so his apparent huge self-esteem and his couldn’t-give-a-fuck attitude is considered _charm_. Zayn kinda wants to fuck the ego out of Harry’s brains right then. He shakes his head with a chuckle, but when he hears “Presumptuous motherfucker” coming in a whisper from his right, he turns abruptly to face the lad sitting next to him, schooling his features into the coldest he can manage. “Well, at least he’s got the talent to back it up,” he replies.

The bloke arches an eyebrow. “Ain’t you supposed to be enemies?”

Zayn chuckles, and focuses on Harry again. “Enemies doesn’t mean not recognizing each other’s talent,” he declares. “Styles is the best in your department, and you’re stupid if you think otherwise, my friend.”

The guy doesn’t reply, because right then, Harry starts to play his _[Violin Partita](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpe7thXd69E)_.

Zayn realizes he’s on edge for Harry, because he’s tormenting one of the cuts in his skinnies, waiting nervously for when the _Sarabande _part will be next. He knows it’s the only thing Harry had problems with.

Harry looks perfectly at ease as he slides his bow over the strings and accompanies the movement with his whole body, not looking at anyone, not even looking at his own hands, his eyes just fixed on a point on the wall as he sifts through the various parts of the _Partita_ with no fucking scores. It’s frankly quite shocking, how Harry looks like he didn’t even _need _to practice for that, how he looks like he fucking _wrote _that piece himself. He always looks like that, but Zayn now knows it’s just an act, because Harry does practice, does struggle, maybe even more than Zayn ever has, because his talent is not godsent, it’s the result of sleepless nights and fingers bleeding, just like Zayn’s.

Zayn and Harry are the same.

The _Sarabande _is the part Harry plays best, Zayn thinks. Harry plays it with his eyes closed, and only opens them again when it’s done.

The _Partita _lasts twenty more minutes after that, and Harry keeps his eyes on Zayn, making him feel like Harry is digging in his stomach with his bow, making him hot and bothered, making him hard. Harry understands what he’s doing, and he smiles a small, imperceptible smirk, and he keeps staring at Zayn until the piece is really over, and he swiftly detaches the bow from the violin, looking at Cowell.

There’s a small moment of silence, and then, right on cue, everybody starts clapping, Cowell included. Harry takes it, with a sheepish expression that is totally, completely fake, and which makes Zayn’s blood boil in his veins. He wants to drag Harry away and tie him up and fuck him and fuck the false modesty out of him. He kinda wants Harry to do the same to him, too.

Harry goes back to his seat, and smirks at Zayn as he sits and places the violin and the bow in his case again. “Yo, Travers,” he then tells the lad sitting next to Zayn, “Come to learn something?”

The guy doesn’t reply, he just rolls his eyes.

Zayn arches his eyebrow at Harry, and Harry chuckles, leaning forward so that he can whisper in Zayn’s ear. His whole body is shaking, with adrenaline or just released stress. “Nobody is as fun to taunt as you, Malik,” he says.

Zayn looks at Harry, and blinks. “Good. Because I’m so fucking angry right now, you have _no _idea.”

Harry grins. “Good,” he says, and then stands up, leaving the room and not bothering to check if Zayn’s following him, because they both know he is.

Harry keeps walking, a couple steps ahead of Zayn, and they don’t speak for a moment. Zayn sees Harry retrieve his pills, and he narrows his eyes, because the bottle is already half empty, and he still doesn’t know how many Harry takes, and he can’t ask, can’t bring himself to just yet. Before Harry can shake his two pills in his palm, though, Zayn sees a cleaning storage, and the next minute he’s grabbing Harry by the shirt and pushing him inside the small space, their feet clambering over brooms and buckets and bottles of cleaning products. “Don’t need these,” he tells Harry, blindly reaching for the pills and shoving them back into Harry’s bag, “I’ll fuck the nerves out of you, Styles.”

Harry’s back lands against a wall, the pills apparently forgotten, and Zayn really wants to fuck him, right now, looking at him.

That’s another thing that’s shifted between them.

Before, they rarely looked at each other while they fucked. Now, they can’t seem to _stop _looking.

“Yes, yes, yes,” Harry murmurs, pleads, going for his own belt while Zayn is not even touching him yet. “Fuck me, Malik, right now. I need it.”

Zayn grins, because Harry is handing it to him on a silver fucking plate. He steps over a broom, coming into Harry’s space, and tuts when their noses touch. “Nah. We need a bed for what I wanna do to you, Styles,” he says slowly, and then kisses him.

Harry sighs and whimpers, his body going lax against Zayn’s, his hands in Zayn’s hair, just carding through it, not pulling. Harry opens his mouth, and Zayn takes it as his cue, sliding his tongue inside it and fucking it in and out of Harry’s mouth, making him squirm and whine and groan just with a kiss.

“But,” Zayn says at last, with another smirk, “you did pretty good in there.”

Harry grins. “I did, didn’t I?”

Zayn nods, and the next moment he’s kneeling in front of Harry, his fingers slowly opening his jeans. “Let’s see if I can suck your fucking hubris through your dick, then.”

It turns out he can.

And when they’re done, after Harry has shouted and cursed and fucked Zayn’s mouth in a way that makes Zayn himself come in his pants without even touching himself, after Harry has come too, in Zayn’s mouth and on his face, his hands tightened in Zayn’s hair, Zayn cleans himself up and then kisses Harry again.

Harry moans at his own taste in Zayn’s mouth, Zayn knows him too well not to doubt he’s taking that as a victory as well. He lets him have it, though, and then whispers on his lips. “My place. Now. We still need that bed.”

“Will you tie me up?” Harry asks.

Zayn chuckles. “If you don’t shut up, I’ll gag you as well.”

Harry bats his eyelashes. “Must be my birthday and I didn’t notice,” he replies lightly.

Zayn rolls his eyes, and he pulls at Harry’s hair.

Harry only groans sinfully.

+

That’s how the next days go. The lines between Harry and Zayn are more and more blurred. They study together. They fuck. They get angry at each other over stupid things, but they kiss it out of each other and then fuck again, hurting each other where it feels good. Zayn watches Harry take pill after pill, too scared to ask about them, and knowing he won’t get an answer because Harry says that he’s fine.

He’s not.

His mother is getting worse, and Zayn is at their place with them when Harry, carefully and slowly, advances the hypothesis of rehab.

Anne gets so mad she throws one of her bottles at Harry, and Zayn gets scared senseless that she’ll hurt him too much, someday, either physically or morally or both. That night, Harry takes three pills instead of his usual two, and Zayn can’t bring himself to speak to him about it, because how can he add more stress to Harry’s already fucked up life? So he shuts, up, and when Harry crawls into bed with him, slowly, _too_ slowly, his eyes red, and asks Zayn to fuck him and make him feel like he’s good for something, Zayn obliges, because that’s why he’s there, that’s what Harry needs, and Zayn provides it.

They don’t tell each other “I hate you” anymore, but they still know what the other needs, what kind of outlet they have to be for each other, and they deliver.

Zayn gets angry, not at Harry, but _for _Harry. Harry knows, but he still asks, begs Zayn to take it out on him, because he needs it just as much as Zayn needs it. And so Zayn fucks him, presses all the buttons of Harry’s pain kink, makes him moan and beg and cry, and takes care of him afterwards, spooning him and listening to him ramble about unimportant stuff because he knows Harry can’t bring himself to talk about the important stuff either.

They do Harmony 4 and History of Music together, and they both do brilliantly. Harry doesn’t even need to properly study, because he’s a fucking genius, and his memory is shockingly good, although Zayn only tells him this after their exams are done, while they fuck the victory out of each other in Zayn’s bed.

They don’t talk about what they are, about the pills, about Anne.

But everything is still there, and Zayn dreads the moment in which everything will blow up in Harry’s face, hurting him, and not in the way he likes and wants.

The day comes for Zayn’s Level 7, his second-to-last exam.

While he sits and waits for his turn, he thinks that he wants to be done quickly so that he can see Harry, and he wonders when it happened, that he started to want Harry so much.

Maybe it was the very day they fucked for the first time. Maybe it was the day of the wedding. Maybe it was when they both stopped saying “I hate you”.

Harry isn’t there for the exam, but it’s just because Zayn didn’t ask him to come. He’s not nervous, he doesn’t need support. And yet, there’s a small part of him that would like for Harry to listen to him. He knows the piece by heart, it’s Chopin’s _Nocturne op. 32 no. 1_, and he played only bits of it for Harry the day before. He kinda wants to play the whole thing for him.

Zayn opens his backpack to retrieve the scores. He doesn’t need them, but Professor Faulkes is one of those teachers who prefer students following the scores over students showing off their perfect memory at exams. Harry wouldn’t ever pass an exam with Faulkes, Zayn thinks with a grin as he rummages in his bag to take out the scores.

He frowns when he sees the book. He didn’t bring any books, he doesn’t even _have _books for these last two exams. When he takes it out, he has to do his best not to laugh. It’s the cool edition of Chopin’s _Nocturnes_, the one with the intro by Brigitte Engerer, the one Harry bought that day in the music bookstore when they pretended to be dating in front of his evil cousins. It was the last copy, and Harry stole it from Zayn and bought it first.

“Zayn Malik,” Faulkes calls right then.

Zayn chuckles, and decides that if Harry snuck that book in his backpack as a good luck charm, he’ll take it. So he goes to the piano holding the book, and then sits on the stool, setting the book on the music stand and quietly skimming through the pages looking for the one he needs, ignoring the approving glance Faulkes is already sending him.

He finds _Nocturne op. 32 no. 1_, and next to the title, there’s a post-it.

_Keep up your fucking tempo, Malik._

_You’ll nail it, I know._

_All my love as always (and a little bit of my hate too),_

_H._

Zayn chuckles, and takes the post-it, sticking it on one of the first pages so that it’ll be hidden from the teacher’s eyes. It’s _private_, after all.

Then, he takes a deep breath, reserving all thoughts about Harry writing to him about ‘all my love as always’ for another moment.

He starts playing the _[Nocturne](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7adcHaOy24)_.

As he follows the scores, he realizes Harry has drawn hearts next to the bits Zayn has played for him. It looks so out of character for both of them, telling each other ‘all my love’ and drawing hearts on their scores, and yet Zayn loves it. He loves it so much that he plays and plays and puts his soul into being the best musician he can be, but part of him wants to be done soon and then go look for Harry and just kiss him.

He gets to the thirty-second notes in the _recitativo_, in the very last minute of the piece, and he remembers Harry saying that it was his favourite part even though he hadn’t heard the whole nocturne. Harry has drawn two exclamation points right there, and then the fucker has written _this part makes me hard_ on it, very small, so small Zayn confides the teacher won’t see it.

He chuckles, and finishes the piece.

People clap extremely loudly when he’s done, and Zayn smiles, shaking hands with the professor and closing the book, clutching it under his arm as he goes back to his seat.

Only when he finishes stuffing the book in his backpack again does he realize that Harry’s there. He’s standing right on the threshold of the room, eyes wide and a hand on his chest, and he looks like he’s about to cry. For a moment, Zayn is scared something happened to him, and fear courses through his veins. Then, Harry smiles, and blinks a couple tears away, and Zayn understands.

_He listened. He liked it. He thinks I’m just as amazing as I think he is._

Louis rolls his eyes next to Zayn. “Get the fuck out, loverboy,” he tells Zayn with a grin. “Say hi to Hazza.”

Zayn hits him on the back of his head, and shoulders his bag, reaching Harry by the door.

He catches a couple people noticing who’s there and Zayn standing right there, close to him, staring at him with a smirk and an arched eyebrow. Then Zayn gestures to outside with his head, and Harry straightens his back, with a grin of his own, preceding him out of the room.

People roll their eyes, but Zayn doesn’t mind.

After all, they don’t know about what’s really happening.

Neither does Zayn, not really, but he’s sure he knows a bit more than anybody who’s not Harry Styles.

+

They make it to Piano Room 1. They lock themselves in, not even caring if it’s the middle of a class day, and they push each other against the wall, against the piano, until Harry is sitting on the armchair and Zayn is straddling him.

They snog for an absurdly long time, Harry’s fingers carding gently through Zayn’s hair. “So fucking beautiful,” he murmurs on Zayn’s lips. “I was there and you were playing and I cried for how beautiful it was and you were,” he adds in another kiss.

“You wrote ‘all my love’,” Zayn replies, and he knows he shouldn’t, but he can’t not say that.

Harry freezes for a moment, and then nods.

“What did you mean?” Zayn asks.

Harry licks at the roof of Zayn’s mouth. “That I still hate you. But something else too.”

Zayn chuckles, pushing Harry’s chest until his back is leaning into the backrest of the armchair and Zayn can kiss him longer and better. “Something else too, huh?”

Harry nods. “Yeah,” he pants.

Zayn nods too. “Okay. Me too. Something else too,” he concedes.

Harry smiles. He doesn’t grin, doesn’t smirk. He just smiles at Zayn, his hands slowly running up and down his sides, and then he kisses him again.

They don’t fuck, they just snog.

They don’t speak, but they can speak another time.

+

A month goes by.

Harry catches up with his remaining exams, and soon enough, both he and Zayn finish their semester perfectly on time at the end of June.

Now, they only have their last exam left, Level 8, planned for September.

They’re free, for a little while. They rarely sleep apart, whether it be at Harry’s place or Zayn’s.

Zayn thinks maybe things are getting a bit better, but he’s brutally reminded that they aren’t when he sees Harry gulp down four pills in a row one night, and then stumble into bed so fucked out of his mind that he can’t even hear what Zayn is saying.

The next morning, Zayn decides to risk it, and confronts Harry about it.

Harry doesn’t get angry, but he doesn’t give Zayn an answer either, because the only thing that he says, repetitively and obsessively, is “I need it, I need it”.

Anne is slowly spiralling down, too, and Zayn is scared senseless for both of them.

He doesn’t know what to do.

The next day, Harry disappears, and Zayn doesn’t see him or hear from him for two weeks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the beginning of the end, my loves! Stay tuned, and as usual, let me know what you're thinking :)


	8. Anger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s been two weeks, and Zayn has probably only slept a couple hours a night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **WARNING:** Please, please read the tags and the following disclaimers carefully. 
> 
> This story deals with: **Drug abuse, alcohol abuse, addiction and alcoholism, anger issues**. 
> 
> As for what concerns the sex, it will mostly be "normal" angry/rough sex, but there will a couple scenes where it will be quite violent. It will always be consensual, there is absolutely no dealing with rape and the like in this fic, but it will be intense.
> 
> If any of these themes bother you, or if you think they might hurt your sensitivity, please DO NOT read this story.

It’s been two weeks, and Zayn has probably only slept a couple hours a night.

He feels so unsettled with Harry gone, and it’s not because he feels the need for physical closeness. It’s because he doesn’t fucking know where Harry went, and his friends have also disappeared, and nobody has seen him anywhere.

Zayn is so angry that he let Harry suck him into his mess only to discard him like a fucking dirty rag that he feels like grabbing Harry by the hair and shoving him on the floor and fucking him senseless, grunting to him that he hates him, like they haven’t done in forever.

Of course, Zayn can’t, because Harry isn’t there to ask Zayn to hurt him where it feels good, to hurt him so that he can feel like he’s good for something.

Louis looks at Zayn like Zayn has some terminal disease, and Zayn guesses he looks a bit like a caged tiger, pacing around his room and pulling at his hair as he tries to _think think think _about where the fuck Harry might be.

He’s not home. Zayn has knocked on his door for hours on end, never getting an answer, and everything looked dark inside the windows. He wonders where the fuck his alcoholic mother might have gone.

Harry has turned off his phone, and never turned it back on. Zayn has tried to call him a thousand times, only to be met with Harry’s stupid voicemail.

Zayn has asked Louis to ask Liam and Niall. They know where Harry is, but they don’t wanna tell him, because they’ve just said _sorry Lou, can’t really say_.

Zayn is so angry he plays and chips his nails until they bleed, and then needs to go to the infirmary and have the nurse bandage his fingertips and tut disapprovingly at him.

He should just forget about Harry, go out and get laid.

The mere thought of letting anyone else touch him makes him nauseous.

“Where are you?” he asks no one as he distractedly walks home from the conservatory. “Where are you where are you where…”

He bumps into someone. They almost fall to the ground, and Zayn can’t be bothered to even say sorry, but when he looks up, he sees it’s Liam.

Liam looks like he’s seen a ghost. His face pales, and Zayn can see dark bags under his eyes, like he also hasn’t slept in a while.

“Zayn? What… what happened to you?”

Zayn feels his rage flare. “Your fucking friend happened to me!” he hisses. “Your friend, who ghosted me after a year of fucking, after telling me ‘all my love as always’, after showing me that he cared, he fucking disappeared, and I don’t know what to do, it’s eating at my guts, I think about him taking those fucking pills, I think about his wreck of a mother, I think he might be dead in a ditch and nobody will ever tell me, and… and…”

He realizes he’s rambling and crying in front of basically a stranger, his floodgates opening with just that tiny question, only when Liam’s strong arms wrap around his shoulders. Zayn widens his eyes, trying and failing to blink the tears away, and it’s another thing he misses of Harry, being wrapped in each other, so he sags against Liam, and doesn’t bother hiding the fact that he’s a fucking mess too, and cries.

When he calms down, he hears Liam sniffle, and Zayn quietly disentangles himself from Liam’s hug, only to notice Liam has cried with him and is now wiping his eyes.

“Where is he, Liam?” Zayn asks, maybe begs, he doesn’t care. “I need to know. Something happened to him, didn’t it? I need to know. I need _him_.”

Liam nods. “He asked us not to tell you. He said that you don’t need his mess, but I think it’s not a question of if you need it, but rather a question of if you want it.”

Zayn nods, quickly. “I want it. I want _him_. I’ve been going crazy, Liam, tell me what the fuck happened.”

“I can’t,” Liam says shaking his head. “I promised him. But I can tell you that there’s a party at _The Dungeon_ tonight, the disco. Harry’s gonna be there.”

Zayn’s insides churn in an ugly twist. “A party? A fucking _party_? I’m here wondering if he’s _dead _and he’s going to _parties_?”

Liam sniffles again, and brushes his face with his hand. “You have to help him, Zayn. He’s… he’s slipping through our fucking fingers, and you’re the only one who has a chance to pick him up. You know what they say, that when you hit rock bottom, the only way you can go is up?”

Zayn nods, defeatedly.

“Harry hit rock bottom. But he doesn’t know, and he can’t get up.”

+

Zayn hasn’t been to a disco party in ages. Since before he met Harry, actually.

He used to only go because it meant an easy pull, and easily getting laid.

When he started hooking up with Harry, the need to find an easy lay had been permanently solved.

He brings Louis with him, because Liam’s words have scared him, and he doesn’t know if he’ll find Harry, and in which conditions. He doesn’t know if something happened to him, if he just decided not to give a fuck anymore and do drugs, he doesn’t know _anything_.

It eats him alive, because he and Harry _knew each other_ even before actually speaking, and now he’s never felt further away from knowing Harry.

When they get inside _The Dungeon_, everything is dark. Zayn makes out the small bar, only lighted with a couple red neon lights, and the rest of the place is in total darkness, with UV lights flashing intermittently over a crowd packed in the middle and dancing, sweating and groping.

The bass is so loud it vibrates through the floor and through Zayn’s upset stomach. “I’m never gonna find him here,” he says defeatedly.

Louis grabs him by an arm. “We will, don’t worry. I don’t like this. Everybody seems drunk or high. It’s a fucking rave, Zed.”

It is. People are snorting coke in corners, Zayn catches the passing of syringes next to the bar, he sees people stumbling in and out, their pupils so blown their eyes look completely black every time the UV lights hit them.

His heart hurts in his chest, because Harry has his own addiction to deal with, and being so surrounded by drugs is the last thing he needs.

It’s Niall and Liam who find them. They look sober, but the dark circles around their eyes tell Zayn they’re certainly not having fun there. Zayn has rarely seen them not laugh. They aren’t laughing now.

They don’t speak. Niall just grabs Zayn by a hand, and pulls him forward while Liam grabs him with a hand as well, using the other to make sure Louis is also part of their weird chain, and then they plunge into the throng of people.

Niall doesn’t stop. Zayn can’t breathe, people are pushing and pulling at him every step he takes, and he hates it, he only wants _one _person to push and pull at him, to touch him, but that person is nowhere in sight.

Until he is.

Niall halts when they reach the other end of the dance floor, next to the amplifiers, and Harry’s there, bathed in purple lights, dancing by himself with his eyes closed, his body so matted with sweat it looks like he just took a shower with his clothes on.

“Bring him home, Zayn, please,” Niall says, screams in Zayn’s ear, and Zayn is scared by how close to crying Niall sounds.

He lets their hands go, and steps forward, until his body is pressed against Harry’s.

Harry’s arms go around him even if he’s not opening his eyes and he doesn’t know who it is. It makes Zayn’s stomach turn in anger, because Harry is fucked out of his mind for sure, with his pills or other drugs, and he would let anyone touch him right now, wouldn’t he? It makes Zayn see red, and his hand finds a path he memorized in the last year, the path up Harry’s back and into his hair, to grab it and pull at it.

Harry frowns. He murmurs something, and keeps murmuring, and Zayn has to strain and look for a while before he can understand what Harry’s saying. “Don’t touch my hair. Only him. Only him.”

“Open your eyes, Harry,” Zayn shouts.

Harry does. He opens his eyes and gasps like he was underwater, and his pupils are blown, his face coated in sweat. His hands tighten around two fistfuls of Zayn’s shirt. “You’re here,” he says.

Zayn nods. “Let’s go home, babe,” he says.

Harry shakes his head. He’s shaking head to toe now, his eyes darting left and right, frantically, like he wants to hide. So Zayn helps him hide, and lightly pushes him against the huge amplifier, so that he’s covering him with his body and the sounds make their ribcages rattle.

It’s a feat, because Harry’s broader than him, but it’s like Harry’s also smaller that night. He shakes and scrunches his back, his legs faltering, and Zayn feels his hands run on his back, where he grabs Zayn’s shirt so hard Zayn feels it rip.

Harry buries his face in Zayn’s neck, and he’s muttering things Zayn can’t catch.

They keep staying like that, Zayn covering Harry, Harry making himself as small as possible against him, wheezing instead of breathing normally. “I took too many pills,” Harry says in Zayn’s ear.

Zayn nods. “You’re gonna be fine, babe. Let’s go home, yeah? I’ll help you.”

“No. I need more. I need more pills,” he replies, and Zayn has to strain to catch his words, cursing the loud music of that fucking rave.

It’s not the time to get angry, so Zayn gulps his bile down when it rises to his throat. “No. You need _me_. And I’m here.”

Harry shakes his head in his neck. “You can’t help me. Nobody can. It’s done. It’s done.”

“What is done, Harry?” Zayn shouts, trying to shake him by the shoulders, but Harry is holding onto Zayn so tight that Zayn can’t move him.

“My Mum, Zayn,” Harry says in his neck. “My Mum is dead. Drank herself to death. I found her. Two weeks ago. She’s gone. I didn’t understand. I thought she was asleep. I let her sleep. I stayed with her. The whole day. But she didn’t wake up.”

Zayn’s legs falter under Harry’s weight and his confession about what it is that happened to him in those two weeks. He feels his throat close off, and he can only hold him tighter, listen to him ramble about it and not being able to catch half of what he says, if there’s even any sense to it.

They both cry. Harry screams his anguish into Zayn’s ears, gripping his shoulders and shirt like his fingers are claws, those fingers Zayn missed, those talented fingers of his.

Zayn grips Harry equally tightly, until he finally manages to pull him away from the amplifier, and through the dancing crowd. He vaguely feels Louis, Niall and Liam follow him, but he doesn’t stop to look, because Harry’s legs are giving up, and he’s still screaming.

When they manage to get out of the fucking disco, and he hears Harry’s screams for real, he thinks they don’t sound human.

But they give each other what they need, so Zayn holds Harry close, and lets him scream into his chest, while Harry’s nails dig painful lines into his shoulder blades when Harry grips him so tightly Zayn feels like they’re melting into one person.

One person, one single entity full of pain, anger and tears.

+

Liam drives to Harry’s place, and nobody speaks in the car.

Zayn is in the backseat, in between Harry and Niall, and Harry is half asleep, his head on Zayn’s chest, only snuffling lightly every now and then.

When they get to the apartment, he feels the other three people in the car look at him like he’s some kind of fucking saviour, like he has a solution, when really, he’s just the last person Harry should have around, because he has anger management problems, and he’s angry.

But when he looks at Harry, at the pitiful conditions he’s in, all the anger seems to deflate from him, because the only thing he wants to do is bring Harry to his room and put him to bed.

So, when Liam and Niall ask him if he’s gonna take care of Harry, Zayn nods, and he does his best not to jostle Harry too much as they both get out of the car and up his front steps.

Zayn finds Harry’s keys in the pocket of Harry’s jeans, and unlocks the door, holding Harry close because he’s almost not holding himself upright, only sagging against Zayn and dragging his feet.

It hits Zayn when he closes the door, that the house is dark and silent because Anne’s dead.

His heart aches for Harry, spending a whole day with his mother’s dead body, not knowing what to do and trying hard to pretend to himself that she was only asleep. How can anyone recover?

The pills were the least that could happen to Harry after that.

“C’mon, babe, up we go,” he whispers to Harry when they get to the stairs.

Harry snuffles and nods, doing his best to climb the stairs with Zayn, failing until Zayn has no other choice but drag him. They get to Harry’s room, and Zayn pushes the door open with his foot, feeling like Harry just became a potato sack for how little he’s cooperating.

He gets him to the bed, strips him of his clothes, and then quickly goes to the bathroom to retrieve a wet cloth to get most of the sweat off his body.

Harry lays down and lets Zayn do as he pleases, humming and rhythmically closing and opening his eyes, his hands moving every now and then like he wants to touch Zayn, only to fall back on the mattress like they’re too heavy for him to lift.

Zayn strokes the damp towel on Harry’s torso, his arms, his legs, his neck and face, and then throws it on the floor. He’ll worry about the fucking towel when he’s less worried about Harry fucking dying.

“Up, babe, come on,” he tells him, pushing him on the mattress a little until Harry shifts and reaches the pillows with his head. Zayn gets undressed and slips into bed with Harry, covering them both with the duvet.

Only after he’s wrapped himself around Harry, spooning him, does he see the two pictures stuck to the wall.

It’s him and Harry, at the wedding. In one of them they’re just standing close, looking at each other with champagne glasses in their hands, and smiling. In the other, Zayn is sitting at the piano and Harry’s playing the violin, and they’re still looking at each other.

“I thought they were cute,” Harry says quietly. “Angelique sent ‘em to me. A video of us playing, too. We were good together.”

“We still are,” Zayn replies, and for both their sakes, he has to believe it.

+

They spend two days in bed. Harry looks like a shadow of himself, he almost doesn’t speak, and Zayn feels like the air in his bedroom has become toxic, he’s so fucking angry.

He’s not angry at Harry, not really. He’s angry _for _Harry, because he’s fucked up, because Zayn is scared that he’s now fucked up beyond recovery. He can see the signs, because they’re the same he didn’t recognize with Perrie. The craving pills every ten fucking minutes, the hollow eyes, the slow movements, the slurring of words.

Zayn lets Harry sleep, though, and stupidly hopes all of this will be gone by magic next time Harry wakes up, _next time next time_.

But it doesn’t go away, and Harry still craves the pills.

Zayn manages not to let him take them, and fucks him instead. He tells him that he doesn’t need the pills, he needs Zayn, and Harry seems to believe him for now, even though he always asks Zayn to hurt him more while they fuck, and then gets angry when Zayn won’t do it.

It’s a slow spiral, but it’s still a spiral, and both of them are sucked in it, because Harry’s craving all the time, and Zayn is angry all the time.

It was always bound to blow up, and it does.

The third night after the disco, Harry and Zayn are in bed, not speaking, not fucking, just in each other’s space. Harry is cuddled against Zayn’s side, and Zayn has an arm around his shoulders, tracing his lame tattoos with his fingertips, drumming them on Harry’s skin with the lightest touch he can manage.

“What are you playing?” Harry asks. “You’re playing something on my arm.”

Zayn chuckles. “Scrjabin,” he tells Harry.

“Is it your last exam?”

Zayn nods. “What’s your last exam?”

Harry nuzzles Zayn’s neck. “Paganini. Of course. What kind of violinist would I be if I didn’t graduate with Paganini? I haven’t even looked at the scores yet. Haven’t played in two weeks.”

Zayn sighs. “You’ll get back into it, babe.”

“Will I? It feels so fucking useless now. I don’t know why I even started playing.”

Zayn feels his stomach drop at those words, and he rises a little on his elbow, so Harry will fall from his chest and look up at him. “You play because it’s the only way you can _breathe_, Harry. Same as me. We’re the same, you and I, always have been.”

Harry blinks. “Are you angry at me?”

“Yes. I’ve always been angry at you, and always will be, because I have anger management issues I never wanted to even call with their own name, and I preferred fucking you through them rather than dealing with them.” Zayn takes a breath. “But I’m done ignoring my problem. I have a problem. And I hope this will make you start to see yours too.”

Harry doesn’t reply. He stares at Zayn for a moment, and then turns, giving him his back. “Goodnight,” he just says.

Zayn doesn’t force him to talk, and when he hears Harry cry, he doesn’t touch him, doesn’t try to console him. Because Harry needs to cry, needs to realize that the only way he won’t die is if he faces the problem like he faced the fucking _Sarabande _by Bach and then overcame it.

And when he falls asleep, he thinks that falling asleep to the sound of Harry crying is a shitty way to fall asleep indeed.

Zayn doesn’t sleep much, however, because he’s awoken by the mattress dipping under the weight of Harry sitting and then standing up.

It’s still night outside, but Zayn has always had a light sleep. Harry sniffles a little and goes out of the room, probably to the bathroom. Zayn doesn’t think much about it, not until he hears the rattling of pills.

He jolts to his feet and runs to the bathroom, but the door is closed, and when he tries to open it, he realizes Harry locked it. He bangs on the door. “Harry, open the door, yeah?”

Harry doesn’t reply.

“Harry? Harry, open the fucking door!”

Nothing.

Zayn starts to feel something creep up his spine. It’s not anger, not now. It’s fear. It’s the sight of Perrie on the floor, full of pills and with half-lidded eyes. It’s the feeling of holding someone almost dead in his arms. It’s death.

Zayn doesn’t ask Harry to open the door anymore. He just shoulders it, repeatedly, until the handle cracks and breaks, and Zayn can barge inside the bathroom.

Harry’s sitting on the floor, his back next to the bathtub, and his head is swaying so much it looks like it weighs a ton. He hums when he sees Zayn, if he’s even seeing him.

There’s an empty bottle of pills next to him. Zayn had seen it three days earlier, and it was half full.

When you’re scared, you think about a lot of things. You think about the source of your fear, about what can happen, about other good things that could help make your fear subside. You never think about fighting the monster scaring you.

Zayn doesn’t think about it. He just moves, and acts.

“Harry, Harry look at me,” he says frantically, crouching next to him.

Harry hums again, his lips blue and his head still swaying.

Zayn does the only thing he can think about. He grabs Harry by the nape, drags him to the toilet, and shoves two fingers inside his mouth, pushing them until Harry starts to gag. Harry keeps gagging and claws at Zayn’s hand, leaving red lines from his knuckles to his wrist, trying to make him pull his fingers out. Zayn doesn’t.

Harry’s whole body contorts, and it’s horrible to watch, but then he throws up.

Zayn removes his hand, keeps his hair out of the way, and watches as a sea of pills comes out of Harry’s mouth, mixed with bile and stomach juices, as Harry retches and retches, the whole half bottle of pills coming out of him.

_It’s not too late, he just took them, he’s gonna be fine_.

Harry spits and heaves, his body suddenly more reactive as he grips the edge of the toilet, his back muscles flexing under the hand Zayn is using to rub circles on it.

_He’s safe_, Zayn thinks, but it’s not the truth, he’ll never be safe, because he’ll just get another prescription and he’ll abuse it again, until one night Zayn is not gonna be there, and Harry will die.

Harry eventually stops vomiting, spits one last time, and then stops crouching over the toilet, landing on his arse, panting.

He’s shaking badly, but Zayn thinks that it’s just the adrenaline now, his body communicating to him _you almost killed yourself_. Harry looks at Zayn, who is still keeping his hair up and out of his face.

When you’re scared, the truth is that you don’t know how to move anymore. You don’t shout, you don’t flail your limbs. You just freeze, and Zayn feels frozen right now.

He leans over Harry, knocking their foreheads together, and he wants to scream at him, but he doesn’t. “You’re alive,” he just tells Harry.

Harry doesn’t reply. He just keeps looking at Zayn, and his eyes are scary, like if he spoke, he would say _yeah, I’m alive, but I don’t want to be_.

Zayn feels that gaze of Harry's carve holes in his heart, and he can’t stand it, so he pulls away from him a little, to do something, anything. He resolves to wet the umpteenth cloth and use it to dab at Harry’s pale, sweaty face.

When he stands up and walks over to the sink, his foot kicks the empty bottle of Xanax.

Zayn bends over to pick it up. He never looked at it all this time.

That’s why, only that night, Zayn sees the prescription.

_Gemma Styles. Two pills when needed._

Zayn’s legs give up, and he also falls on his arse, in front of Harry, clutching the bottle in his hand, feeling it crack for how much he’s squeezing the orange plastic tube.

Harry’s eyes are darting left and right, like he wants to hide. But he doesn’t move.

Zayn keeps looking at him, but he doesn’t speak, because if he does, he’ll probably also move and grab Harry by the hair and hurt him even if Harry doesn’t ask for it. Zayn is so fucking angry he feels like he needs a fucking straitjacket.

“I don’t have a prescription,” Harry says at last, slowly and quietly, like he’s talking to himself. “Gemma has diagnosed anxiety. I never went to therapy, I was too scared that I would be diagnosed too, because I know I have it. She only moved to the States six months ago, and I was supposed to go to the pharmacy and cancel her renewable prescription. I never did. Her doctor forgot, I think, I’m not sure. The only thing I know is that I only tried her pills a couple of times, and they helped, so instead of cancelling her prescription, I kept buying the pills, and I started taking them regularly. They help.”

“Do they, Harry?” Zayn asks, and his voice sounds so wrong, so fucking wrong. “Because the only thing I’m seeing right now is that you almost killed yourself. You lied to me, told me you had a prescription. But you don’t. You’ve been self-medicating all these months, and now you’re hooked on this shit, and you’re suicidal too, if you want my completely non-professional opinion. And I say so based on the fact that I just made you throw up something like fifty pills.”

Harry must hear the _wrong _in Zayn’s voice as well, because he gasps and blinks, and he looks at Zayn in the eyes. “I never asked you to help me. I only asked you to fuck me and make it hurt so that I could be good for something. The rest you chose.”

Zayn laughs. He laughs bitterly, standing up and throwing the bottle at Harry’s feet, making him start and whimper. “I chose it because I saw how bad you fucked up your life, and I couldn’t stand seeing you like that!”

Harry stands up too, and he looks infinitely better now that the shit is out of his system, but Zayn can’t sigh in relief, because they’re fighting, and he’s angry, and he’s seeing red. “Then you should have just stopped looking!” Harry screams. “Why are you even here, Zayn? Why do you care? Why did you stop just fucking me and making me hurt? It was perfect like that, we didn’t need more. But you ruined it!”

Zayn doesn’t reply. He just launches himself on Harry, grabs him by the hips, and pushes him out of the bathroom, towards the bedroom, watching Harry stumble whenever Zayn’s hands collide with his chest. They get to the bed, and Zayn keeps pushing until Harry’s lying down, his eyes wide open and a litany of “Yes yes yes yes” on his lips.

Zayn is disgusted by himself and Harry when he realizes they’re both hard, because this is what they do, the pushing and pulling, the hurting, that’s how they started and that’s all they know.

So Zayn doesn’t speak, he just straddles Harry, rips away both their pants, and grinds his hips down, hard, revelling in the way Harry whimpers and arches. “I ruined it, didn’t I?” Zayn asks, grunts.

Harry nods, his eyes full of tears. “Yes. You did. Make me hurt, Zayn. I want it to hurt, I want it so much.”

Zayn knows there’s something profoundly wrong in what they’re doing, but he can’t bring himself to stop, because he’s so fucking angry all the time, _at _Harry and _for _Harry, but Harry is the only person in the world who will never recriminate his anger to him, will always let him take it out, and Zayn doesn’t know how to stop. He knows his thoughts don’t make any sense, and he doubts Harry’s are any better.

They only have this, the anger outlet, the hurt, the growls.

Zayn grabs Harry’s hair and pulls until they’re properly in the middle of the bed. Harry goes willingly, takes care of retrieving the lube himself. He tosses it at Zayn with a condom, shaking bodily when Zayn drizzles the lube on his fingers. Zayn is so hard it hurts, and Harry looks like he is as well, his eyelids fluttering and his spine arching underneath Zayn, his fingers digging in Zayn’s biceps as painfully as possible.

Zayn stops, before starting, because _this _he knows, _this _they’ve done the whole time.

“Do you want this?” he asks Harry, because he needs to know. “I have to hear you say it before you make me lose my mind, Harry, because you made me so angry that I wanna hurt you right now, and it scares me that I know you _want_ me to”

Harry nods. “I want it. I need it. Make it hurt. Make me hurt. You’re the only one who knows how,” he says, and then, for good measure, he runs his nails down Zayn’s chest, scratching it so hard he almost draws blood.

So Zayn does. He rolls the condom on, only lubes himself up, and slams his dick into Harry without preparing him, draping Harry’s legs over his shoulders to make it harsher, quicker, faster, more painful.

Harry growls something that might be a “Yes”, and then lets Zayn do what he pleases, closing his eyes and taking it.

Zayn won’t have it. “Fight back, Styles,” he grunts, snapping his hips only harder, “I want _my _Harry Styles,” he adds, and his voice breaks. Something twists ugly in his stomach when he sees Harry only open his eyes and stare up at Zayn, smiling like he’s taken all his pills again, like he doesn’t hear Zayn, like he’s too far gone.

It breaks something inside Zayn. He slows his movements, realizing he’s really hurting Harry, and he doesn’t want to, because Harry is already hurt. Harry frowns, like he doesn’t want Zayn to stop and doesn’t understand what’s happening, and Zayn feels so fucking close to crying that he does the only thing he can think of.

He keeps fucking Harry, slower, and places a hand on Harry’s chest, leaning forward so he can kiss him.

Harry sighs in their kiss, opening his mouth and letting Zayn’s tongue in, and his hand covers Zayn’s own on his chest, gripping tightly at it, pushing it up and up and up until it’s on his neck.

Then, Harry squeezes Zayn’s hand.

It takes Zayn a moment to understand what Harry’s asking, and that’s probably the moment in which Zayn is most scared.

Because Harry wants Zayn to choke him, and they’ve never done this, not like this, not ever. And also, Zayn is angry. He’s angry because there he is, trying to slow down because he doesn’t want to hurt Harry, because he _loves _Harry, and Harry is there smiling and pressing Zayn’s palm against the column of his throat because he just wants the hurt.

And Zayn is so angry that for a moment, a tiny moment, he wants to grant Harry’s wish and ignore the fact that he’ll hurt him.

And that’s the moment that scares Zayn the most.

He gasps a breath, pulls his hand away like Harry’s skin is burning, and stops fucking into him, although he doesn’t pull out because Harry’s clenching around him so hard it’ll be painful.

Harry is there, breathing heavily and looking at Zayn, like he’s _waiting_.

“What the fuck, Harry?” Zayn asks, screams.

Harry blinks. “I asked you to hurt me. It’s what we do.”

Zayn shakes his head. “No!” he says, and he’s bursting into tears without being able to control himself, and he feels that he’s also flagging inside Harry, because everything is wrong, _everything._ “No, it’s not what we do, I don’t wanna do it!”

Harry doesn’t reply. Zayn tries to get a grip on himself, and suddenly the distance between them feels unbearably big, so he leans forward again, points his hands at each side of Harry’s face, and speaks with their mouths close. Some tears drop from Zayn’s eyes onto Harry’s face, and Harry blinks, runs his tongue over them, and tears pool in his own eyes as well.

“You said _something else too_, Harry,” Zayn whispers. “When you wrote on the Chopin scores. You said that you hated me, but something else too. Did you mean it?”

Harry nods. “Yes.”

Zayn nods too. “Then stop asking me to hurt you. I can’t anymore, Harry. It’s killing me and you.”

Harry bursts into tears, and for a moment, Zayn is scared that it’s too late, that he’s already hurt Harry too much with his anger, but Harry just keeps crying and wraps his arms around Zayn’s shoulders, kisses him like it’s the first and last time they’ll do it.

The kiss makes Zayn get back to full hardness. Harry shifts under him, bucks his hips, and for the first time, Zayn takes care of being gentle when they have sex.

He lays Harry down, entwines their fingers, pressing their hands into the mattress, and fucks in and out of Harry slowly, unbearably slowly, feeling every inch of him slide in and out of Harry’s hole.

Harry sighs and moans, thrusting his hips up in time with Zayn, muttering nonsense about “Only you” and “So good” and “I’m sorry” and “I don’t wanna die”.

Zayn kisses him, because he feels like his heart can’t take those things in that moment, and only slightly changes his angle, hitting the spot he knows by heart inside Harry, and Harry, even if Zayn is not hurting him, comes untouched.

He whimpers and comes, and when he’s done, he looks at Zayn. “I hate you, Malik,” he says. “But something else too.”

Zayn chuckles, and gives a couple of deeper thrusts before coming as well. “I hate you, Styles. But something else too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're so close to the end! This was the most challenging chapter to write, so as usual, reviews are appreciated. Let me know what you think!


	9. Chopin - Nocturne op. 20, piano and violin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's something else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Usual disclaimer: I don't know or own any of the characters present in this work. I only own the plot and any eventual original character.

Zayn wakes up feeling drained and sore. His chest hurts where Harry scratched it the night before, and his heart hurts where Harry broke it the night before.

He’s alone in bed, and panic and bile rise up his throat before he realizes Harry’s still there, standing and looking at the two pictures of them he stuck on his wall.

When Harry realizes Zayn is awake, he slowly walks to the bed, and sits down, looking at Zayn, but just for a moment, like he can’t bear it.

Zayn gulps down and sits up, crawling on the bed until he’s closer to Harry. “Harry?” he just asks.

Harry nods. “I have a problem, Zayn.”

Zayn nods.

“I… I have a drug addiction. To the anxiety pills. I wasn’t supposed to take them, but I did, and I got hooked on them.”

It’s good, that Harry says it. The solution of every problem starts with admitting the problem’s there, doesn’t it?

Zayn takes a breath. “I have anger management issues. Probably always had them, but they became pathological after Perrie almost overdosed on Xanax. I never thought it was a problem, because you showed me that I could solve it through hate-fucking you. But it is a problem, and it can’t be solved like this.”

None of them speaks after that. Harry bursts out crying, and crawls over Zayn until he’s straddling him, his legs wrapped around his waist and his face in his neck.

“I’m sorry,” Harry sniffles at last, maybe a couple hours later, when the sun is showing up in the sky. “I’m sorry I forced you to hurt me. I’m sorry I’m fucked in the head. And I’m sorry I hurt you too,” he adds, lightly pressing his palm on Zayn’s chest where his marks are, and Zayn knows he means the scratches, but also Zayn’s heart.

Zayn shushes him. “It’s alright. We’ll be alright, babe, yeah? We’ll deal with our problems.”

Harry nods. “I wanna go into rehab.”

Zayn doesn’t reply for a moment. He doesn’t know what to say, because he knows it’s what Harry needs, it’s clear as day, but it also means they’ll be separated for months, maybe even years, it means Harry will lose his registration to the conservatory, it means…

“I wanna go today,” Harry adds.

Zayn freezes. “Today?”

“Yes,” Harry says pulling back a little so that they can look at each other in the eyes. “This is what I was trying to convince my Mum to do. She never wanted to, and then she died. But I don’t wanna die, Zayn. I thought I wanted to, last night. But then… then I looked at you after you saved my life, and I realized I don’t wanna die, because I have too much shit to live for. I have my violin, I have Liam and Niall, I have Gemma, and I have you. I don’t wanna lose you. And if I die, I lose everything. Permanently.”

Zayn bursts into tears, and nods, gripping Harry tightly against his chest, like someone is gonna come through the door right that moment and drag him away. Harry grips Zayn just as tightly, crying and holding him like Zayn is gonna burst into flames if he lets go.

They cry their fill.

Then, Harry packs. He doesn’t take much, just some changes of clothes, his scores, his violin. “This is coming with me,” he says, and musters a real smirk in Zayn’s direction.

Zayn smiles, and it’s weak, but Harry understands.

Zayn takes care of closing all the windows and all the power outlets, because the apartment is gonna stay empty for an indefinite amount of time, surely months, maybe years. It breaks Zayn’s heart.

Harry calls his sister. Zayn doesn’t listen to the conversation, but instead he calls Louis, cries and tells him what’s going on. Louis cries too, and shushes Zayn through the phone, telling him that he’s gonna be there for Zayn every fucking day of his life, cheers.

Harry also calls Niall and Liam. Zayn doesn’t know what he tells them, but when they’re ready to go and close the door of the apartment, Niall and Liam are outside of it with Louis, standing and looking at Harry and Zayn, and everybody’s crying, and it’s quite a mess when they hug, but they manage.

Liam drives. Zayn is secretly glad, because he doesn’t know if he would have had the strength to drive Harry to a clinic where he’s gonna lock himself up voluntarily. And while Liam drives, Zayn can be in the backseat with Harry, Harry’s head on his shoulder, and their fingers entwined, but only delicately, because they don’t need the hurt anymore.

They’re about to pass the music college when Harry raises his head. “Zayn?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you… do you wanna play together? One last time? Before I go?”

Zayn cries, but he’s already nodding.

Liam sighs, and makes a U-turn, parking in the conservatory parking lot.

They all go out of the car.

+

It’s quite early in the morning, but there’s a fair amount of people already in the building. As the five of them walk to Piano Room 1, there’s probably some fucking aura around them or something, because Zayn can feel people starting to follow them.

In hindsight, maybe it’s just the fact that Zayn Malik and Harry Styles are holding hands.

Zayn doesn’t turn to look at them, and keeps his hand in Harry’s as they get into the room.

Nobody follows. Liam, Louis and Niall stay on the threshold, telling everybody to shut the fuck up and be quiet or they’ll kick them in the face. Harry giggles.

Zayn takes out their _Nocturnes _edition, because it’s _theirs_, isn’t it, it’s not Zayn’s or Harry’s. He flips through it, remembering something Harry once told him, while they fucked angrily against a wall in a nameless classroom.

_I bet you couldn’t keep up with me if we played Chopin’s Nocturne op. 20._

It was only meant to be snarky, because everybody knows that Zayn Malik can play every fucking Nocturne ever written by Chopin, but Zayn knows Harry now, and he understands it was just Harry’s way of admitting he’d like to play with Zayn again.

So Zayn finds the page for _[Nocturne op. 20 for piano and violin](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvVX-6zb5N8)_, and Harry smiles, and they play.

The scores aren’t needed, Zayn realizes as they keep their eyes on each other, playing together rather than against each other, as it should be.

The sound of Harry’s violin is heart-breaking, and it’s not just the way it’s supposed to sound, it’s Harry, because Harry is so talented you can _feel _what he _feels _through what he plays, and immediately Zayn’s eyes fill with tears.

Harry moves the bow and moves his whole body, and he’s crying as well as he looks at Zayn, and Zayn knows Harry finds Zayn’s piano heart-breaking as well, because Harry can _feel _what Zayn _feels _in it, and it’s not anger, not in that moment.

It’s something else.

They play and play, the music becoming more and more devastating, but it’s the only thing they can do, the thing they were born to do, a thousand times better when they’re together, like they were made this way. Zayn sitting and looking up, and Harry standing next to him and looking down.

It’s over, too soon. Harry plays the last series of quick, sad notes, whispering over Zayn’s own sad sounds, and it’s the saddest Nocturne ever written, yes, but they’re also the saddest people in the world right now.

Because they’re hurting, and they need the outlet, but it can’t be each other. So they let their instruments be their outlet, and Zayn can’t scream, so he lets his piano scream for him.

Harry can’t scream either, but his violin is there to help, and all the anguish and pain and sadness erupts from it like it’s part of Harry’s body, like it’s tears and blood, and it breaks Zayn’s heart.

As soon as they’re done, Zayn stands, and they kiss through their tears, their noses pressing against each other as they cry and speak.

“I never meant them. The ‘I hate you’s,” Harry whispers, “I stopped meaning them a long time ago.”

Zayn nods, smiling and crying, kissing Harry again. “I never meant them either. I meant the something else, though. I love you, Harry. I love you.”

Harry chuckles wetly. “I meant the something else too. I love you. I love you, Zayn.”

When they stop and are able to separate, they look at their audience.

Everybody’s crying, even if nobody knows what’s happening except the three people in the front.

Harry sighs. “We’re just too damn good, I guess,” he says loudly.

Zayn chuckles. “That we are. You’re Styles Almighty, after all.”

Harry winks. “Let’s go, Malik Almighty.”

They go.

+

The clinic doesn’t look too bad, but it still gives Zayn the shivers when he thinks Harry is gonna be locked in there for who knows how long.

He goes with him to the front desk, where Harry struggles a little, but in the end manages to say out loud that he has an addiction and needs help.

A doctor shows up. He speaks to Harry in private for a while, and when they come back together again, a couple nurses take care of picking up Harry’s bags and his violin, bringing them away. “Be careful with the violin, yeah?” Zayn shouts at them, because he can’t fucking help it.

Harry shushes him, cupping his face with his hands. “They will. I already made sure. No need to shout, babe,” he whispers on his lips.

The doctor clears his throat. “Mr. Styles, you have to say goodbye. You’re not allowed visits or phone calls for the whole duration of your treatment. A member of your family is allowed to call the clinic once a month to have news about you, but even they won’t be allowed to speak to you personally, it will go through me. Just thought you should all know how this is gonna work.”

Zayn starts crying. The reality hits him, that he’s saying goodbye to Harry, and he’s not ready, he feels like he didn’t even start kissing Harry that long ago, and now he’s supposed to give it all up, for those fucking pills, for how bad they fucked up, for…

“Zayn,” Harry whispers. “Look at me.”

Zayn does, sniffling. “What am I gonna do?” he asks, pathetically.

Harry smiles, and he’s crying too, but he gently knocks their foreheads together, his fingers lightly ghosting over Zayn’s jaw and cheekbones. “You’re gonna study for your Level 8,” Harry says. “You’re gonna graduate in September. For both of us, because I won’t be able to, now. I’m sorry I failed.”

Zayn takes a series of decisions, in that moment. He shakes his head. “You aren’t failing. You’re gonna finish your degree too. Not in September, the first months are gonna be rough on you here,” he agrees, “but in the December special session. You’re gonna do your fucking Level 8, and then graduation ceremony can wait until you’ll be out. I’ll register with you for that.”

Harry chuckles and shakes his head. “Zayn, I doubt I’ll be out by December. How can I do my exam from here?”

Zayn takes a breath, and then kisses Harry. “You study for it. Be ready for the December session. I will find a fucking way to let them do your Level 8 here. Okay?”

Harry laughs. It’s refreshing to hear the sound, because it’s been a long time since an honest laugh came out from Harry’s lips. “You’re fucking scary when you’re so determined, Malik Almighty,” he says. “Okay then. I’ll study. I’ll be ready in December.”

They both nod, but neither of them lets go of the other yet. It’s Harry who speaks, an indefinite amount of time later, when Zayn starts to hear their friends cry and the doctor shift uncomfortably. “Will you wait for me, Zayn?” he asks, barely mouths it. “I don’t mean for the graduation, of course. I mean for _me_. I know it’s a lot to… to ask,” he sniffles, chuckling sadly, “and it’s okay if you don’t want to, I’ll understand that. But I want you to want to. Will you wait for me?”

Zayn nods, crying and sniffling like a toddler. “I’ll wait for you, of course I will, Harry, I’ve always fucking waited for you even when neither of us knew yet,” he replies, and kisses him again. “I’ll wait for you, babe. But I need to go now. I can’t be strong much longer.”

Harry nods, and kisses him one more time. “Yeah. Get the fuck away from here, then, Malik.”

“Study for your fucking exam, Styles,” Zayn replies, even manages to grin and kiss Harry again, and then runs out of the building, feeling his heart break repeatedly.

He waits by Liam’s car, and when he, Niall and Louis come out, they’re an utter mess as well.

Zayn gulps down. “We gotta go back to the conservatory. I need to speak to Simon Cowell,” he says.

To their credit, his friends don’t even ask.

+

“Mr. Malik, Professor Cowell is in a meeting with the Strings Committee!” Mrs. Plum shouts, running after Zayn when he completely bypasses her and strides for the door to Cowell’s studio.

Zayn looks at her. “I don’t care!” he shouts back. “This is more important, okay? It’s about the lad you like, Mrs. Plum, the curly one with the dimples who plays the violin. Do you wanna be the reason he’s expelled from the conservatory?”

Mrs. Plum gasps and then shakes her head.

“Cool. Then, I need to speak to fucking Cowell,” Zayn declares, and then knocks on the door.

He doesn’t wait for an answer, and just opens it.

Cowell is sitting around a circular table with four more people, and he raises his eyebrows so high they almost disappear in his hairline. “I’m in a meeting,” he just says.

“Harry Styles just went into rehab,” Zayn replies.

Cowell’s face pales, goes red, his eyes narrow and Zayn thinks there’s a hint of sadness in them. But then Cowell clears his throat, and nods. “Very well. I’ll make sure to cancel his registration to the college.”

“No!” Zayn shouts. “No, that’s not what I mean, are you crazy?”

The other four professors gasp indignantly.

Cowell stares at Zayn. “Mr. Malik, then _why _are you here?”

“Because,” Zayn says, and then pulls out all the couldn’t-give-a-fuck attitude he can muster, his _and _Harry’s, and grins, plopping on a chair even if nobody offered him to sit, “I want you to go there and let him have his Level 8 from the clinic, in the December special session.”

“You have some _nerve_, boy!” one of the other professors exclaims. “This is unprecedented! The student has willingly given up by doing this, and he should be unregistered!”

Zayn stands and leans with his hands on the table, his face getting closer to the teacher’s. “He was about to die yesterday. I think it’s fair to say it was his only choice,” he says coldly, whispering.

“This is easier said than done, Mr. Malik,” another professor says. “The Strings Committee needs to be present for Level 8’s, it would mean we have to go there and…”

“It’s only June!” Zayn says cheerfully. “There’s plenty of time to organize a trip to the clinic in December. I can drive you myself.”

They don’t speak for a moment, too much at a loss, probably, and Zayn keeps staring at them, at Cowell in particular because he’s the Head of the Strings Department, and Zayn knows he has the last word.

“Why are you going to such great lengths to save Mr. Styles’s career, Mr. Malik?” Cowell asks. “For what I know, you two are sworn enemies.”

Zayn thinks about a series of things he could say. He could confess that he loves Harry. He could wax poetics about his talent.

Instead, he remembers that he now has Harry’s phone, because he couldn’t keep it in the clinic, so he gave it to Zayn. He thumbs the screen open, and goes to the gallery, until he finds the pics and videos Angelique sent Harry.

Sure enough, their video is there, of them playing Mozart. Zayn presses play, and puts the phone on the table.

It’s weird, to watch himself play with Harry, because he knew that he and Harry rarely interrupted their eye contact, but now that he sees it from the outside, he wonders how they didn’t realize what they felt for each other right the night of that fucking wedding.

Zayn lets the piece play, and sees one of the teachers sigh and gasp, another bring a hand to his chest, Cowell’s lips quiver.

When the video is over, Zayn takes back Harry’s phone, pocketing it. “This is my _enemy_,” he says seriously. “Are you willing to lose him? Because I’m not. And if you are, you’re really fucking dumb.”

Luckily, they don’t even mind the swearing.

They just look at each other, and then the teachers nod at Cowell, who nods back, and then looks at Zayn. “Very well, Mr. Malik. We will drive to the clinic on the December exam date for the Level 8’s, and we will have Mr. Styles do his exam from there. I’ll take care of dealing with the doctors to have their permission.”

Zayn grins. “Let me know when the date is. I got a little bit of cheerleading to do for Styles Almighty.”

Zayn goes out of the room, and when he does, he sees Cowell wink at him behind the other teachers’ backs.

\--

**Seven months later**

Many people think Zayn is a little batshit because he finished his exams such a long time ago, and he’s still not registering for graduation.

Some people know, or have figured out, that he’s waiting for Harry Styles.

Only three people know that that’s not the only reason, and that reason becomes clear that very morning, when Zayn goes out of his therapist’s office with confirmation that he’s okay now, his anger managed, his problem dealt with, and a new life ahead of him.

He thinks it’s only fitting, that he finished his therapy the same day Harry has his Level 8.

He hasn’t seen or talked to Harry since June. Zayn knew it would happen, but it still hurts like a motherfucker. They told him he would get used to it.

Zayn never did, and he still misses Harry like a limb, still cries when he wakes up in the morning and for a painful, sleepy second forgets the reason he’s alone in bed.

He knows Harry is doing okay, though. He exchanged numbers with his sister Gemma, and Gemma calls the clinic every month, as she’s allowed to do, getting info about her brother’s progress, and then delivers the same info to Zayn.

_Harry’s doing great. He’s progressing at the speed of light. His cravings are gone. He’s still playing. He’s studying for his Level 8. He says he hates Paganini but he keeps playing. He’s managing. He’s healing._

These are the things that have given Zayn the strength to also do better. Knowing that Harry was dealing with his problem made Zayn put more effort into dealing with his own.

Now, he’s good and done. He still holds onto his registration form for graduation. If they’re lucky, he and Harry are gonna do it soon. Together.

It doesn’t matter right now, because Zayn has more important matters to tend to. Like driving to the clinic and assisting to Harry’s Level 8.

Well, not assisting. He knows he won’t be allowed into the clinic with the Strings Committee, because he’s not part of it, and Harry still can’t receive visits. They made an exception to let him finish his violin degree, but they won’t make another exception for a fucking boyfriend. Zayn doesn’t take it personally, of course, and if you think about that, that’s the craziest thing.

That Zayn doesn’t get angry anymore.

There you have it. Zayn Malik, Champion Of Fucking Zen And Chill. That’s what Louis wrote on the group chat they have with Liam and Niall when Zayn told them he’s clinically healed.

That chat misses a member, but they’re gonna add him very soon. Zayn’s sure, very very soon.

Anyway, Zayn can’t assist to Harry’s exam, but he will be damned if he won’t stand outside the clinic, right under Harry’s window, and listen to him.

He already called the clinic and told them. The doctors probably think he should be interned, but in the end they’ve agreed to allow him on the clinic’s private grounds to stand under a window and listen to his boyfriend play his violin. They’ve probably been charmed out of their knickers by Harry’s violin, and that’s why they took pity on Zayn.

When he gets to the clinic, Cowell and the other four professors—Zayn still doesn’t know their names—are there, getting out of their own car.

Zayn joins them, shakes hands with Cowell, and Cowell smiles, pulling him into a hug. “Do you want me to tell him something from you?” he asks quickly, in a whisper.

Zayn smiles. “Just tell him that he nailed it and I’m proud.”

“You don’t know if he’ll _nail _it.”

Zayn scoffs. “Oh, I do. Believe me, I do. ‘S Styles Almighty. He doesn’t know how _not _to nail stuff.”

Cowell chuckles, and Zayn stares at them enter the clinic, and he longs to follow them, to see Harry, see his dimples and curls and smile and violin.

Instead, he waves at the doctors and then circles the clinic until he reaches the façade where Harry’s room is. It’s on the fifth storey, and there’s no way Harry will ever see him or Zayn will ever see Harry, but Zayn is there anyway, and if it feels too much like Romeo and Juliet, well, nobody has to know.

Zayn waits. He waits until his stomach growls, his lungs constrict, his throat closes off, because maybe Harry stopped playing and isn’t ready, maybe he really gave up, Gemma hasn’t called Zayn with updates this month, what if Harry got worse, what if something happened, what if…

A long violin note slices the air, and Harry starts playing Paganini’s _[Caprice op. 1 no. 15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKuNt_DRp54)_.

The piece is so quick it gives Zayn shivers, nausea, accelerated heartbeat and it makes his head spin, but it’s in a good way. He smiles and laughs, listening to Harry fucking _nail _his Level 8, and Zayn would climb the wall and throw himself at Harry through the window if he could.

Instead, he just stays there, his whole body shaking, and he listens.

He listens, and listens, until the shortest and most difficult violin piece he’s ever heard is done.

And then he has a heart attack when he hears the whole fucking building clap.

Zayn laughs, clutching at his chest, and he has to lean into the wall to avoid falling to the ground, because the sounds of the applause are almost deafening, and Harry fucking deserves it. He can imagine Harry, fake modesty and all, smiling sheepishly at the ground and knowing that only Zayn would see the hubris in his eyes, because he has a matching one.

They’re not perfect. They’re not always behaving at their best. They’re proud.

But they match, and they’re alright.

Zayn should just go away, but he doesn’t go, because he wants to wait for the Committee to come out, wants to ask so many things, wants them to tell him how Harry did, how good he is, how _fine _he looked.

So when they come out, an awfully long time later, Zayn just runs towards Cowell, and doesn’t give a fuck about grabbing him by the shoulders. “Is he okay? Did you hear him? He’s so fucking good, I wish I could fucking tell him. Did you tell him what I asked you to?”

Cowell arches an eyebrow. “No, I didn’t.”

“What?” Zayn shrieks.

Cowell grins. “I didn’t tell him, because you can tell him yourself, Mr. Malik.”

“Zayn?”

Zayn thinks he has a stroke, a heart attack, and a lung failure, together. Because when he walks past Cowell, to the entrance of the clinic, Harry’s there, hair in a bun and just wearing jeans and a white t-shirt, and he has his bags at his feet, and his violin slung on his shoulder.

He’s smiling.

“Harry?”

Harry laughs. “I’m out, Zayn.”

Zayn doesn’t reply, because his voice fails him. He just runs up the stairs, trips three times, and finally, _finally_ reaches Harry, cupping his face with his hands and kissing him, slow and hard, relearning the way Harry tastes and the way he sighs whenever their lips connect. “What do you mean you’re out?” Zayn asks, trying not to cry.

Harry nods and sniffles. “I’m done. I’m healed,” he says. “Gemma hasn't called yet for this month. So the doctors couldn’t tell her that there was a good chance I would be out before New Year’s. I didn’t think you’d show up to listen to me from outside the clinic, how lame is that?”

Zayn laughs, and he kisses Harry again. “Only the lamest for you, Styles,” he declares.

Harry starts crying too, and they keep being in the clinic entrance, laughing and crying and kissing, until the doctors scoff and roll their eyes and kick them both out.

\--

**Another month later**

“…and it’s only by hard work, profound interest, passion and dedication that we’re all here today, celebrating the end of this journey together, and…”

“Styles, that’s the lamest fucking speech I’ve ever heard.”

Harry looks outraged as Zayn climbs onto the stage and invades his personal space when he’s giving the speech during the graduation ceremony.

Zayn sees many people roll their eyes at them, and he grins, standing next to Harry by the mic, and not giving a fuck about rules. “The truth is that he’s not even entitled to give the whole speech,” Zayn says into the mic, staring at the audience sitting in their chairs. “I’m just as good as him, so really, it should be both of us.”

“Zayn, what are you _doing_?” Harry growls, something close to a homicidal wish in his eyes.

Zayn is unimpressed. “I just wanted to say we don’t need all the fancy words and the good memories Styles is listing, do we? These years fucking _sucked_. We cried, we bled from our fingers, we had nightmares about Professor Trackel coming out from under our beds shouting at us that our wrist posture was shit…”

“…and Professor Cowell telling us that we sounded like a cat dragged through an alley…” Harry adds, with a grin of his own, because he might be Styles Almighty, but he’s a little shit, same as Zayn.

Zayn laughs. “Exactly. But at the end of the day, we’re here and we’re fine. We have our papers saying we can play a fucking instrument, and some of us have papers stating that they’re managing their anger issues,” he says seriously.

Harry’s hand slides in Zayn’s. “Some of us have papers that say they’re not drug addicts anymore,” he adds, and Zayn knows how much it’s costing them, to say those things out loud, in front of a whole audience, but it’s only fair that they do. Because their issues are not just their own, and Zayn and Harry can only hope that admitting them will maybe inspire others to do the same.

Something good has to come from all their tears and blood and pain.

Zayn smiles. “We all have our music, and our issues. At the end of the day, we’re fine. I just wanted to make sure you all know that the blood we spat was really worth something more than a piece of paper.”

Harry sighs. “My speech is ruined. I have nothing left to say. Whatever Malik rambled about. I agree,” he says defeatedly.

Everybody laughs and cheers, and then, because Harry Styles is a little shit, he grabs Zayn by the hair, purposefully, to make him hiss in pain, and then kisses him with a laugh still on his mouth.

“Now I’ll have to drag you away and show you how angry you made me by ruining my speech,” Harry murmurs on Zayn’s lips.

Zayn chuckles. “I thought we were past the point we fucked each other for anger and hurt?”

Harry sighs. “Yeah, that we are. But I still got a pain kink if it’s you, Malik.”

“I still got that Harry Styles kink, last time I checked,” Zayn agrees, and kisses Harry again in front of the whole conservatory for good measure.

When they stop and look at the audience again, they see _a lot _of people handing over bills to their grinning peers.

It turns out that Liam, Louis and Niall weren’t the only ones betting on them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's done.  
This has been one of the most challenging stories to write, for the themes and the plot in general, and I gave it my all, so I'm extremely glad if some of you have made it this far with me.  
As usual, let me know what you're thinking :)
> 
> I have many more fics in store, so I'll see (read) you guys soon, if you'll have me. Till next time!
> 
> Come find me on Tumblr at wont-you-stay-till-the-am.tumblr.com if you wanna chat.


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